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THE 
YANKS ARE COMING! 




WILLIAM SLAVENS MCNUTT 



THE YANKS 
ARE COMING! 

BY 

WILLIAM SLAVENS i^\cNUTT 
ILLUSTRATED 




THE PAGE COMPANY 
BOSTON ^ MDCCCCXVIII 






Copyright, 1917, by P. F. Collier & Son, Inc. 
'Copyright, 1918, by P. F. Collier & Son, Inc. 



Copyright, 1918, by 
The Page Company 



All rights reserved 



First Impression, September, 1918 



©CI.A 5 0(3150 



INTRODUCTION 

" You should say to mudder, Louie, dot it iss in 
dis United Stateser army notting at all like vot ve 
talked about ! " 

The young Jewish boy, clumsy in the unaccus- 
tomed olive-drab of the national army, was bidding 
an older brother good-by in a train at Camp Upton, 
Long Island. Camp Upton is one of the sixteen 
cantonments in which the men of the national army 
are being trained. The brother, in his citizen 
clothes, was unmistakably a foreign-born product of 
the New York slums — undersized, stooped, and 
shriveled. He was leaving for the city after his 
first visit to the soldier boy of the family who had 
been in camp but little more than a week. 

" You should say to mudder dot it iss notting like 
vot ve said," the boy in uniform repeated earnestly. 
" It iss all a difference. I got it a fine captain, und 
I am telling you, Louie, dot man iss like a fader to 

V 



vi Introduction 



me! You should say to mudder how dis morning 
he speaks mit me like I am a somebody und tells me 
things. I got it plenty good stuff I should eat und 
a good place I should sleep, und ve are all heppy 
like anything, Louie. Mebbe some day I get hit mit 
a bullet in France, or something — who knows ? — 
but now everything iss fine like anything, Louie. 
You should say so to mudder, Louie — und, lissen, 
Louie — you should say to mudder dot it iss not bull 
I tell her. You should say to her it iss not bull, 
Louie!" 

The Jewish boy in the uniform had the right idea. 
The message he sent to his mother was not bull. 
He had expected cruelty in the army, and he had 
found kindness; he had looked for humiliation, and 
he had found pride. He had learned that, while he 
might lose his life on the battle field, he would not 
be driven to lose his self-respect in the barracks or 
on the parade ground. A foreign enemy may break 
that boy's body when he goes over the top, but no 
officer of his own country is going to break his spirit 
beforehand. And I want to say to you — you 



Introduction vii 



doubter of American patriotism, whoever you may 
be — that when that boy understood he was to have 
fair treatment before the time he went over the top, 
99 per cent, of whatever reluctance he may have had 
to serve as a fighting man vanished. That boy, in 
common with hundreds of others in this country, 
had not feared death in battle so greatly as he had 
feared degradation in service. 

The average, everyday, go-to-business-and-come- 
home-again American citizen, both native and for- 
eign born, always hated the idea of service in the 
army. He hated it not because he objected to fight- 
ing in his own defense, but because he believed that 
an army was necessarily an undemocratic organiza- 
tion akin in form and spirit to the old class-ofiicered 
military bodies of Europe. 

The brutal truth is this: To the mind of the 
average American the army was an organization 
that a man joined when he was broke, tired, and 
hungry, and yet didn't feel quite bad enough to com- 
mit suicide. 

The average American always thought of the 



viii Introduction 



average army officer as a man who might possibly 
be human, but probably wasn't. He was glad to 
cheer him as he rode by at the head of a parade, but 
serve under him as a stranger, and an enlisted man 
in the ranks? If necessary in the defense of his 
country, but the idea of it stung. The little that 
Mr. Average American knew, and the much that he 
had heard of army discipline and the methods of its 
imposition, made soldiering, to his mind, a sort of 
penance which one must pay for the privilege of 
fighting and even dying for one's country. The 
average American, both native and foreign born, 
has had a stubborn distrust of any army organiza- 
tion and of army officers as a class. 

Being what I am, an American citizen, I did not 
go to Camp Upton with an open mind. I went there 
predisposed in favor of the men in the ranks, and 
with a stupidly stubborn prejudice against the offi- 
cers as a class. 

One of the first officers with whom I talked, a 
captain of infantry and a Plattsburg graduate, 
swung hard and landed fair on the solar plexus of 



Introduction ix 



my prejudice. I left him an opening for the blow 
by making use of the phrase " officers and men." 

" There are not * officers and men ' in this army," 
he corrected me sharply. " There are only men. 
Some of us have been commissioned by the Presi- 
dent of the United States to serve as officers, and 
others of us have been selected by the President of 
the United States to serve in the ranks; but we are 
all ' men.' Don't forget that! " 

As a reporter I became accustomed to hearing 
men make use of the vocabulary of idealism for pur- 
poses of publication only. When the captain made 
his little speech I smiled, and then very suddenly I 
quit smiling, for it was borne in upon my conscious- 
ness that he meant what he said. He was not talk- 
ing merely for purposes of publication. He was 
not kidding. What he said was " not bull." 

When I left that man v^ho was an officer — that 
officer who was a man — I left in a mood to learn ; 
and I want to tell you, Mr. and Mrs. American, 
what the men — the men of all ranks in the national 
army — taught me. 



Introduction 



I am writing only of the human elements in the 
experiment known as the national army. I am not 
interested in figuring out how many times around 
the world the shingles used on the roofs of the bar- 
racks in the sixteen huge cantonments would reach 
if they were laid end to end. I am vitally inter- 
ested in knowing — and telling — what the men of 
the national army, selected and commissioned, think 
of themselves and the experiment of which they are 
a part ; I am vitally interested in knowing and telling 
of the initial effect of that experiment on the men 
and so on the heart of the United States. 

William Slavens McNutt. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction v 

The Real Pacifists 1 

A New Idea and a New Army 29 

The Yanks Are Coming! 72 

R'arin'toGo! 99 

How Does the Far West Stack Up? 131 

Let 'Er Buck! 163 

The Flying Bedsteads 195 

What Are We Going to Get Out of It? . . . . 206 

The Clackers 244 



The illustration on the cover 

is used hy arrangement with 

McClure's Magazine 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



William Slavens McNutt .... Frontispiece ^ 

"Have their first practice at shooting from ^ 
A standing position in a trench " , . . 14 

" ' If you miss Fritz, you've scared him to .. 

death''' 24 v^ 

« i Jrp STANDS FOR THE COUNTRY THAT IS THE 

MOTHER OF US ALL ' " 33'" 

General View of Camp Upton 43v' 

Army Engineers Building Eoads at Camp 

Devens 73 *' 

" ' Tee-hee, hee-hee ! Guess ! ' " . . . . 87 k' 

" i have seen him rushing and lunging with 
his bayonet " 106 

"a man of the signal corps is wigwagging y 

messages " 112 '' 

General View of Camp Lewis 134 

The " Top Hands " of the Eemount Depot, 

Camp Lewis 164 ^'" 

" It is a vital work these men of the rope 

and saddle are doing " 168 ^ 

" The Virginian eased the pressure of his 

FINGER " 175 ^ 

" A ROW OF WHAT PASSES IN THE AMBULANCE 

SERVICE FOR COUNTRY HOMES " .... 200 

" ' What's it to you where I stand? ' "... 208 

" ' Every time I come home they moan and / 

groan and sigh '" 253 



THE 
YANKS ARE COMING! 



THE REAL PACIFISTS 

I 
THEIR SWEETHEART 

" I HEAR them guys over there in France call 
their rifle their sweetheart," the corporal said, as he 
drew the bolt of his Enfield and moved back from 
the shallow firing trench where he had just finished 
pulling the trigger on ten shots at the lOO-yard 
range. He was a very young corporal in a very 
young army. Ten weeks before he had been an 
unskilled factory worker in New York City. The 
shots he had just fired were his first. The rifle he 
held was the only gun he had ever handled. 

" Yuh gotta figure it that way when yuh get over 



The Yanks are Coming! 



there," the sergeant said seriously, cradling his gun 
carefully in his arms and blowing on his chilled 
finger tips. " The cap'n was — now — tellin' a 
bunch of us las' night that our rifle was — now — • 
the bes' fren' we got in the worl' when we git into 
the trenches. ' It's all they is between you an' the 
Germans,' he says to us. ' An' it's up to you guys,' 
he says, ' whether it's any pertection or not. If yuh 
treat it right,' he says to us, ' an' take good care of 
it an' — now — learn how to use it good an' all that, 
then some night when the Germans'll be comin' at 
us in the dark, or somethin', it'll be some good to us. 
But if we leave it lay around an' don't take no care 
of it, or anything, nor learn nothin' about usin' it 
right, or nothin', why, then,' he says, ' sometime 
some German'll be comin' at us, an' when we go to 
use our rifle it won't be no good or we won't know 
how to handle it, or somethin', an' — an' — good 
night ! ' Yuh know yuh gotta figure it is kinda 
your sweetheart at that ! " 

The sergeant was ten weeks a graduate from or- 
dinary labor in the shipping room of a big depart- 



The Real Pacifists 



ment store. A gun was as great a novelty to his 
fingers as to the corporal's. To the ears of each 
the spang of a high-powered rifle was a new sound 
in the world. Each had that morning pressed the 
trigger of a loaded piece for the first time, heard the 
resultant report, and felt the spank of the kicking 
butt against his flesh. Both were trembling a little. 
The corporal looked at the sergeant and nodded. 

" You gotta figure it that way when you get into 
the trenches," he agreed profoundly. " You sure 
have." . . . 

II 

WHY I AM THERE 

The dawn is loud with the urgent bray of many 
bugles sounding reveille as I hurry along a dark 
roadway in the national cantonment of Camp Upton 
to keep my date with a lieutenant of infantry who is 
taking out a detail for their first work on the rifle 
range. I am there because a soldier's mother has 
said to me furiously : " They're teaching my boy 
to commit murder ! I suppose it's inevitable ; I sup- 



The Yanks are Coming! 



pose that it's necessary for him to learn the terrible 
things they're teaching him, to maim and kill; and 
I'm almost afraid he's coming to like it. I believe 
he gets a thrill out of some of the horrible things 
he's learning to do. If he isn't killed, he'll be bru- 
talized for life ! " I am there because I have heard 
a navy officer of high rank say : " The only w^ay 
to win this war is by murdering Germans." And a 
civilian reply: "We hate this talk of murdering. 
We know that we've got to do murder to win the 
war. We know that we've got to do it, but we hate 
to hear of it." I am there because a reserve army 
officer has said to me with a shrug of nausea: 
" Winning this war is just a matter of wholesale 
murder, you know ; that's all it amounts to." 

Through the slowly evaporating darkness I make 
out shadowy formations of men in line on the com- 
pany streets. I hear chilled morning growls and 
shivery laughter, the sharp bark of men answering 
to roll call, the shuffle of hurrying feet and the clank 
and bang of mess tins. Forty thousand American 
men, the you and I and the rest of us of Yesterday, 



The Real Pacifists 



are gulping through breakfast, hurrying to get at 
To-day's business of learning how to kill ! 

I arrive at the appointed barrack. Breakfast is 
over and the place is noisy with the clatter and 
stamp of men hurrying out. A sleepy sergeant 
serves me a big tin of coffee in the bare orderly 
room. I follow the lieutenant out. It is still dark. 
We find twenty-seven men lined up waiting. A 
sputter of orders from the second lieutenant and 
they start clumping away through the dim light be- 
tween the rows of barracks. Soon we have covered 
the space occupied by the barracks and emerge on 
a large open plain scarred with practice trenches and 
adorned with log frames some seven feet high, from 
the top of which hang rows of dummies swung to 
represent men. 

In every direction I see details of men on the 
march. From everywhere I hear the shout of 
orders. The men of the detail I follow are march- 
ing at route step, whistling and joking. Their gun 
barrels make a black, bobbing stubble of steel 
against the lightening eastern sky. The men start 



The Yanks are Coming! 



singing a popular song. Certainly not a blood- 
thirsty crew by their manner. Yet they are afoot 
to learn how to kill ! 

Ill 
THEIR FIRST SHOT 

We pass rapidly through a forest of low-growing 
brush oak. Five miles over a winding road and we 
come out upon the rifle range. A half-mile line of 
white squares with round black centers for bull's- 
eyes. The men march to the shallow firing trench 
marking the loo-yard range and stack their arms. 
They are stamping about, slapping their bodies with 
their arms, warming their fingers at the fires, mak- 
ing boasts and wagers. 

" Go you half a buck I shoot better'n you do." 

" What d'ye think ! I never shot a gun in me 
life." 

" You got nothin' on me. I never shot before in 
my life." 

"Honest?" 

" I'm tellin' you true." 



The Real Pacifists 



" I got you for half a buck." 

A sergeant from an adjoining company swaggers 
over. " Any you guys in Company I want to lose 
some money bettin' on your eyesight ? " 

" What d'ye want to bet on? Company aver- 
age?" 

" Sure." 

" You know we guys never shot before." 

" Neither did we. This is our first time out." 

" Well, we may do pretty rotten, but Company I 
ain't as bad as Company K at anything. Whatever 
you dig up we'll cover." 

The sergeant goes back to his own company to 
busy himself with a petty collection that is quickly 
covered with a pool from Company I. My friend 
the lieutenant looks at his watch and nods. " Time ! 
Company I fall in. First order up." 

A crackle of orders runs down the half-mile line 
of men. The first order of men from each detail 
step forward and throw themselves prone in the 
shallow intrenchment with its foot-high parapet for 
a rifle rest. There is a half-mile of recumbent men 



8 The Yanks are Coming! 

in that intrenchment. There is a subdued clack of 
working bolts as the pieces are loaded and the line 
breaks out in a sudden rash of noise. A half mile 
of American men are lying on their stomachs in the 
dirt firing their first shot in the Great War. A very 
small corporal is lying just at my feet. He is of 
such size that I imagine a woman might marry five 
or six like him before properly becoming liable for 
bigamy! He grips his piece tightly, shoves the 
muzzle in the general direction of the targets, shuts 
his eyes, makes a horrible face, and yanks at the trig- 
ger. There is a report and the gun bucks in his 
hands. For a moment he lies doubled up, eyes 
closed, evidently waiting for something to happen. 
Then he opens his eyes, looks about him, realizes 
that he has fired the piece successfully, and gives a 
whoop of delight. 

" I betcha I get a bull's-eye next time," he calls 
to me exuberantly. " I didn't try to hit nothin' that 
time. I just shot the thing to see how it felt." 

The shooting steadies into a continual jarring 
crackle of sound. The rifles speak a common Ian- 



The Real Pacifists 



guage, but each seems to have an individuality 
of voice. Whup! Sping! Spowie! Puff! Bing! 
Whup! They speak in the tone of things that 
sting ! 

The first and second Heutenants kneel in the dirt 
by the men, instructing them in the proper hold, 
sight, and trigger squeeze. Probably not more than 
one in fifty of all the men on that firing line ever 
fired a shot before that morning. 

" Don't yank at the trigger like that," the lieuten- 
ant begs. " A steady, slow squeeze — that's it ! 
Shut one eye. No, no! Not both eyes. Can't 
you shut one eye? All right. Tie your handker- 
chief over one eye until you get used to it. Cuddle 
the butt up against your shoulder there. That's it. 
Don't jump like that when you pull the trigger. 
Your own gun isn't going to hurt you as long as 
you are on this end of it. Steady now. Plenty of 
time. Get a bead on that bull's-eye, a slow, steady 
squeeze, and you've got it. That's the stuff ! " 

The red flag indicating a clean miss becomes con- 
spicuous by its absence above the rifle pits. A 



10 The Yanks are Coming! 

cheer from the men waiting behind the hne greets 
each appearance of the white disk telling of a bull's- 
eye. The first order completes its ten shots and 
retires to wait while the second order goes on with 
the firing. 

" I got six bull's-eyes out o' ten shots," a heavy- 
set corporal tells me excitedly. " What d'ye think 
o' that? I never shot a gun before, an' I got six 
out o' ten. I was an ironworker before. D'ye 
think mebbe workin' in the air like I done got me 
nerves steady, or somethin' ? D'ye think mebbe I'll 
get to be a sharpshooter if I keep on like this? I 
could be one, I bet, huh ? " 

'' r was rotten," another confesses dejectedly. 
" I was scared an' shakin' all over. I never shot 
before an' I didn't know what was goin' to happen, 
I didn't get the hang of it at all till the last two 
shots. I done all right with them. I'll be all right 
next time." 

The lieutenant beckons me, and I go to him. 

" They're doing remarkably well," he tells me 
proudly, fingering the score sheets. " None of 



The Real Pacifists II 

them have shot under forty-one, and several have 
done forty-seven and forty-eight out of a possible 
fifty. Fellows who never shot before! It's re- 
markable ! " 

He goes back to his work of instruction. As 
soon as he leaves the men surround me. 

" Lieutenant say anything about us guys ? He 
say how we was doin' ? " 

*' He said you were doing fine." 

"Honest?" 

"Sure!" 

The men grin happily. They look at the brown 
field intervening between them and the targets, and 
the smiles fade to give place to thoughtful expres- 
sions. The field is audibly alive with the speaking 
things of death. The ear is assailed with the 
brassy, poisonous-sounding squeal of hundreds of 
hunting bullets giving voice on their swift aerial 
trail to the targets. Can a man move on that field 
and live? That is the question in my mind. It is 
the sobering question in the minds of many about 
me. 



12 The Yanks are Coming! 

" I hear them Germans is great shooters," a ser- 
geant says seriously. 

"Why wouldn't they be?" another speaks up. 
" Ain't they always been learnin' how to shoot ? 
An' here we're just startin' ! I bet when we get 
practice we'll be just as good as them an' a lot bet- 
ter. We got to get practice, ain't we ? " 

They appeal to me. Do I think they'll soon be 
able to learn to shoot as good as the Germans? 
What they're really asking me is this : Do I think 
they'll have an even break for their lives when they 
go into battle against the Germans? Do I be- 
lieve they'll be able to master their new profes- 
sion sufficiently to earn themselves a fifty-fifty 
percentage of life chance when they face the 
enemy ? 

They are so eager! So sincere! All those fine, 
brave American men out there learning to kill! 
Yes! Thank God, yes! Learning late, but learn- 
ing! Learning to kill in order that they may be 
something more than sheep at the slaughter when 
they go into action! Learning how to kill so that 



The Real Pacifists 13 

their lives they lay down on the battle field may not 
be given in vain ! 

Learning how to murder? No! If I could only 
make that " no " mean something to the disordered 
brains of the well-meaning men and women who 
have been so mentally rattled about the shock of 
war that they think upside down and reason with 
their feet because they are standing on their heads ! 
If I could make it mean something to the mother 
who blights herself with the horrible thought that 
her soldier son is being taught to do murder ! I can 
make it mean something to the man in arms, and 
to him I speak : 

You are learning to kill, and may you learn your 
lesson well! You are not learning to do murder. 
Killing in self-defense is not murder. So far as 
I know, no court in any land holds that killing in 
self-defense constitutes murder. There is no law 
of God nor man that damns a protector who kills 
in defense of himself or his lawful charge with the 
crime of the murderer ! 

You are learning to kill in defense of American 



14 The Yanks are Coming! 

women. You are learning to kill in defense of 
American homes. You are learning to kill in de- 
fense of that America which has been the refuge 
from injustice for peoples from every country 
against whom and with whom we fight. You are 
learning to kill in defense of civilization. You are 
not learning to do murder, nor will your necessary 
work of killing necessarily befoul you with any of 
the brutal characteristics of a murderer. Brutality 
and bravery have nothing in common; murder and 
killing in self-defense are not synonymous. 

IV 

AND THEN — EATS 

The men finish firing on the first range and retire 
to the deep trench two hundred yards distant from 
the targets. There they mount the firing step and 
have their first practice at shooting from a standing 
position in a trench. They lunch in the open before 
the final shooting from the three-hundred-yard 
range. We retire behind the third and last trench, 



The Real Pacifists 15 

where the smoke from scores of fires is hovering 
over the brush. Thick sandwiches and cookies and 
big tins full of steaming hot coffee — oooh, how 
good! A young lieutenant with a tin of coffee in 
one hand, a sandwich in the other, and his pursed 
lips leaking crumbs seeks me out. 

" I've been picked for sniper's duty," he tells me 
eagerly, after a convulsive gulp that clears the path 
for speech. " Ain't that great? " 

" Fine stuff." 

" I'm tickled to death; I'll have scout duty to do, 
you know. One of my jobs'll be to crawl out into 
No Man's Land at night and hunt for enemy pa- 
trols, see? Then, if I can locate one, I'm supposed 
to use jujutsu on him and get him back to our 
trench alive. Gee ! That ought to be mighty lively 
work, huh? I tell you I'm glad to get a chance at 
it." 

He is a husky, handsome young fellow. His 
eyes are bright with enthusiasm. I know people 
who would point him out as a horrible example of 
the effects of military training and say: "There 



l6 The Yanks are Coming! 

you are! He enjoys the prospect of this terrible 
fighting. He's acquiring blood lust." 

That young fellow is no more bloodthirsty in his 
enthusiasm than some young football player who is 
promised a coveted chance to play in a certain game, 
a boy who has been given permission to go camping, 
or a live-wire salesman who earns the opportunity 
to go after a tough customer. The young lieuten- 
ant has been promised the chance to experience the 
thrill of the dark and the unknown, the chance and 
the quick-wits matching of individual combat. 
Don't begrudge him whatever romantic thrill he 
may be able to derive from expectation or experi- 
ence. He'll have his fill of mud and monotony and 
sordid horror. 

V 

CARRY ON! 

After lunch I make my way through the thick 
brush to a machine-gun range a mile away to the 
left, guided by the intermittent staccato chatter of 
a Colt and hoping that I'm not by any chance wan- 



The Real Pacifists 17 

dering on to the private reserve of any busy bullets. 
I come out of the woods in the rear of the gun posi- 
tion. Near a big camp fire a dozen or more Ameri- 
can officers are grouped around two machine guns 
listening to the instructions of an English major. 
The English officer is a short, spare, peppery veteran 
with a raspy voice that he can use for the same pur- 
pose that a mule skinner uses a blacksnake. 

" Burr-wuff ! " he shouts. That's as near as I 
can get to it phonetically. Two captains leap to 
their places by the machine gun. The one who 
sights and operates the piece throws himself flat on 
his back with his head cradled on the knees of the 
man feeding. There is some slight delay and the 
English major breaks into song. 

" Come, come ! Carry on ! What are we wait- 
ing for? You should have killed a hundred by 
now. What is it ? What is it ? My word ! Not 
so slow. We're not having dinner, you know; 
we're killing boches. What the blinkety-blank's 
wrong now? Come, come! Carry on! Carry 
on!" 



l8 The Yanks are Coming! 

The gun speaks jarringly. One side of the barrel 
spits a stream of yellow cartridge cases over the 
breast of the operator holding the trigger. Three 
hundred yards distant the blade of bullets slices the 
ground before the target and throws up a little line 
of dust. 

The major orders a fifty-yard advance. The 
American officers dismount the piece, go forward at 
the double-quick and set it up once more. The op- 
erator pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. He 
fusses and tugs. Still no result. The English 
major calms himself and heaves a deep sigh. He 
looks at the gun crew like a man with no insurance 
viewing a total loss. " Oh, my eye ! " he groans 
sadly. " How dead you'd have been by now ! All 
right, leave off; leave off! Never mind." 

He points to the man who carried the ammunition 
and who is standing behind the gun curiously watch- 
ing the efforts of the crew to make it shoot. 

" Next time don't stand up behind the gun. You 
stick up there like a dummy in a shop window. A 
body would think you were an advertisement for 



The Real Pacifists 19 

something. You're not trying to sell the gun to 
the boches, you know. Standing there giving away 
the gun position! Next time find cover twenty 
paces to the right or left and try to act like a bit 
of mud. Yes!" 

VI 
TECHNIQUE DOES IT 

I leave the field to the caustic major and make 
my way back to camp. The huge practice ground, 
with its many assault, bayonet, and bombing 
courses, is crowded with men in uniform learning 
how to kill. I hear a whistle, and a line of men 
with rifles leap from a near-by trench. They pass 
me at a steady pace, very serious, their bayonets 
held at high point. There is a shouted order, and 
with a yell they break into a run, charge shouting 
up to the parapet of a trench, and leap yelling into 
it, thrusting with their blades at bags on the ground 
as they drop to earth. 

" Going some! " I say to one of the men as he 
comes panting back. 



20 The Yanks are Coming I 

"Doing pretty fair, aren't we?" he answers, 
grinning. " We were rotten at first. Half the fel- 
lows would go charging up to the edge of the trench 
and balk there. Most of the rest of us would sort 
of slide over and land 'most any old way. But 
we've got so's we go in now with a jump and a 
whoop. It's all a matter of practice." 

" What line were you in before you came out 
here?" 

" This is my first job," he says, laughing. " I 
just graduated from Cornell." 

VII 

REAL SHOT PUTTING 

I pass on to another part of the field where a line 
of men are standing in a narrow, knee-deep trench 
practicing bomb throwing. They stand with their 
left hands extended toward the target in the posi- 
tion of a shot putter, sway far to the right, and let 
drive with an overhand swing. They are throwing 
at foot-wide ditches twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty 



The Real Pacifists 21 

feet away. They must drop a bomb directly into 
one of those narrow ditches to gain a hit. 

" How do they get on with it? " I ask the heu- 
tenant in charge. 

" Immense," he says. " I've got one fellow here 
who's going to come near being a world-beater." 
He calls to a sergeant : " This man wants to see 
you chuck one." 

The sergeant shucks off his tunic, balances a bomb 
and swings. Wow ! The black missile sails up and 
over and down, a good clean fifty feet, to land 
within two feet of the object ditch. 

" He threw that far his first try," the lieutenant 
says with a chuckle. " The French officer instruct- 
ing us throws about thirty-five and I can do forty. 
Our French instructor was telHng me that he had 
heard of a man who threw sixty-two feet, when this 
fellow cut loose with his first throw and heaved it 
over fifty. It's a different motion than we use 
throwing a baseball, but baseball arms come in 
mighty handy." 

" I bet I can do better'n sixty when I get prac- 



22 The Yanks are Coming! 

tice," the sergeant tells me as he wriggles back into 
his tunic. " I can do over fifty right along, an' I 
ain't been at it but a little while. All I need's a 
little more practice." 

VIII 
WITH THE BAYONET 

Near by a detail of lieutenants are thrusting with 
their bayonets at a hanging row of dummies, work- 
ing under the eye of an English sergeant-major. 

" Steady now," he urges. " Don't go poking 
about any old way. One steady thrust. That's it. 
An' mind you watch what you're reaching for. 
You can't just shut your eyes an' shove your point 
toward the Rhine an' expect it to get into a boche. 
Your Hun's all hung about with equipment these 
days that a point won't go through. You must 
pick your spot. An' when once you get it into him 
it's a job getting it out if you don't know the trick. 
A hard, steady pull, an' mind you don't go off your 
feet when the blade comes free. You wouldn't be- 
lieve how a Hun sticks on a bayonet ! " 



The Real Pacifists 23 

The Heutenants are working earnestly. They are 
the ordinary men of the street and shop and school, 
the office and factory of yesterday, learning how to 
kill. So quickly do they learn that one standing by 
for a few minutes may note the improvement in 
their style. 

" Smart chaps these," the English captain in 
charge of the bayonet instruction says, joining me. 
" They're learning fast." 

" They'll need all they can learn when they get 
into the trenches." 

" My word, yes," the captain agrees with me em- 
phatically. " This fighting's got to be a very com- 
plicated game. The crafty fellow in the trenches 
will soon do away with the dumb one or the poor 
chap who doesn't know the tricks of the game. 
But your cbaps are learning fast. All they need is 
a bit of teaching." 

" Just as you leap into the trench you must yell," 
the sergeant major tells the class. He illustrates 
alarmingly, a truly terrorizing figure with his bay- 
onet at low point, his eyes distended and his mouth 



24 The Yanks are Coming! 

wide open, as he emits a fearful shriek. " Like 
that. A good loud one. Then, if you miss Fritz, 
you've scared him to death an' your job's done. 
No matter how you kill him as long as he's dead. 
Yes." 

IX 
PRACTICAL PACIFISM 

Lie in the dirt and shoot with rifle or machine 
gun! Stand in a trench and toss an iron bomb! 
Thrust, cut, twist, sidestep, parry, lunge, and kill ! 
Measure a man for a vital spot and send the slick 
steel slithering home! What is this horrible sci- 
ence of seeming butchery that our men are learning 
by the hundreds of thousands? 

Pacifism! Just that. Practical pacifism! Our 
men are learning war in order that they may so now 
perform that hereafter the peoples of the world 
shall be driven to learn war no more ! Our men 
in arms are busy preparing to preach the gospel of 
pacifism. They are busy mastering the use of the 
only voice with which they can make their gospel 




IF YOU MISS FRITZ, YOU'VE SCARED HIM TO DEATH ' " 



The Real Pacifists 25 

heard at the present moment — the voice of steel! 
The men of the army have a dirty, loathed job to 
do and they are giving their time and risking their 
lives to do it. They don't like it one bit better than 
any shuddering sensitive who shuts his eyes to hard 
necessity and shakes his head in sorrow over the 
plight of the warriors who he believes are being 
brutalized to stand the sight of the things he has 
not the courage to look upon! If they make the 
best of a bad job, if they are humanly sensible 
enough to lighten bayonet drill with grisly humor, 
if they sink the blade into the dummy with a laugh, 
instead of groaning and retching with horror each 
time — don't worry, Mr. Fireside Idealist. Don't 
fret for fear that gentleness and love, charity and 
brotherly kindness — all the proper virtues of civi- 
lization — are being crushed out. No ! You sit 
quiet and enjoy your dream. You can do it safely 
because the men with the bayonets are learning the 
fine points of their profession; learning the profes- 
sion of pacifism; learning the hated details of 
slaughter; steeling their natures to endure both the 



26 The Yanks are Coming! 

give and take so that the things of peace about 
which you only dream may be true ! Civihzation is 
in arms prepared to meet destruction in battle rather 
than endure degradation in servitude. The fight- 
ing pacifists are Messianic. They are offering 
up their lives that the best in civilization may en- 
dure. 



X 
CAMPS DON'T TALK WAR 

One hears less war talk in an American military 
camp to-day than in any other place. The soldiers 
are talking war only in relation to some particular 
work they may be doing. The war has uttered a 
call that all of us have heard. Some of us are 
answering the call by frantically yelling about peace, 
others by yelling for war. The only ones who have 
properly answered the call are those who have an- 
swered it with the Messianic spirit and offered their 
bodies as a sacrifice to end war. They are satisfied. 
This thing that is war is not uppermost in their 



The Real Pacifists 27 

minds. They enjoy a quiet conscience. They and 
they alone are the real pacifists. 

Recently an Australian officer, many times 
wounded, rose at a meeting in New York and said 
something to this effect : " I am looking for a 
pacifist. I want to ask him what he ever did to 
bring about peace. I've fought for peace. My 
men in the trenches are fighting for peace to-day; 
fighting for it and dying for it. As soon as I'm 
able I'm going back to fight for it again. We are 
the only pacifists who are doing anything to bring 
about peace." 

Darkness gathers. From every direction march- 
ing men are converging upon the camp. Retreat 
and mess. It is dark and cold and dreary as I make 
my way across the camp. The sudden appearance 
by my side of a silent sentry startles me. I think 
of No Man's Land : A patrol on a night like this ; 
an American boy confronted by veteran Huns; a 
struggle; the employment of knowledge gained in 
the training camps ! The American boy is back in 
his own trench alive ! Thank God for all the 



28 The Yanks are Coming! 

knowledge of butt and bayonet, of knife and gun, 
of fist and bludgeon that he can gain. The gun 
and the knife are the proper tools of the pacifist 
these days. 



A NEW IDEA AND A NEW ARMY 



THEIR FIRST « RETREAT " 

Stand with me, if you please, on a bumpy, 
stump-studded company street in front of an un- 
painted two-story barrack in the national army can- 
tonment at Camp Upton, Long Island. Look in 
every direction and see rough, unfinished streets, 
lined with barracks, groups of marching men in 
uniform, other groups in civilian clothes, some 
idling, some busy, some playing ball, some blase 
veterans of three weeks' standing, and others scared 
rookies of that day's batch of arrivals. 

The barrack before which we stand is occupied 
by casuals; that is, men recently arrived, who have 
not yet been assigned to their companies nor given 
uniform. It is late afternoon. A half mile to the 

29 



30 The Yanks are Coming! 

westward, above headquarters hill, the American 
flag is standing stiff in the breeze, a vivid block of 
contrasting color, against the rich orange glow from 
the setting sun. We hear a shouted order from 
within the barrack, and there comes trooping forth 
a gang of young fellows who look about as much 
like soldiers as Von Hindenburg looks like a ribbon- 
counter clerk ! There are about one hundred of 
them, one day old in camp and selected largely from 
the slum and gang districts of New York City. 
They slouch out and form a disreputable line, some 
of them sullen, some defiant, others indifferent, some 
scared, and all sloppy in dress and bearing. There 
they stand, man for man, the people we shake our 
heads about when we wonder whether the melt- 
ing pot is really a melting pot or only a garbage 
pail. 

The lieutenant calls them to attention, and they 
make a shamefaced bluff at straightening up. You 
hear the faint notes of a bugle from headquarters 
hill. The flag outlined against the western sky 
flutters slowly down and is tenderly gathered in the 



A New Idea and a New Army 31 

arms of a corporal. A giggle passes down the line. 
Rough witticisms at the expense of the ceremony- 
are whispered. The giggle spreads. The lieuten- 
ant calls out " Rest! " and the men become if any- 
thing a little more slouchy and disreputable-looking 
than before. That tough-looking, polyglot gang 
have stood their first retreat as American soldiers! 
What of it? All they know about it is that it's 
some kind of army bunk to be ridiculed; some 
ridiculous hocus-pocus that they are compelled to go 
through because they are soldiers. That's all. 

II 
EXPLAINING THE NEW IDEA 

We see the captain step out beside the lieutenant. 
He is a stocky, red-headed young Irishman, who 
looks as if he might contain trouble. The men look 
up at him apprehensively. What's going to happen 
now? 

" Fellows, do you know what it means to * stand 
retreat' to the flag? " he asks them in a conversa- 



32 The Yanks are Coming! 

tional tone. "Do you know why you come out 
here, line up, and stand at attention while that flag 
comes down ? " 

There is no answer from the men in the ranks. 
They don't know, and they don't particularly care. 
They exhibit, however, a mild show of interest. 

" It's like this, fellows," the captain goes on in 
explanation, " When you were in civil life, before 
you came into the army, maybe you were working 
to take care of your mother. You went out and 
you worked hard all day long in the factory or on 
the street or the dock or in the office, doing what- 
ever it was you did to make a living; and you came 
home at night all tired out and just dog hungry. 
You got home and you went into the bathroom and 
washed your hands and face, slicked up your hair 
a little, and went in to your mother. You kissed 
her and you said : * Well, mom, I did a tough 
day's work and I'm mighty hungry. Got supper 
ready ? ' 

" That's what you did when you were in civil life. 
Now you're in the army. You're American sol- 



A New Idea and a New Army 33 

diers, and that flag up there is just the same to you 
as your mother. It stands for the country that is 
the mother of all of us. 

" Now, boys, you go out and do a hard day's 
work, drilling, learning to fight to take care of the 
country that flag stands for, and at night you come 
in pretty tired and hungry, but before you eat you 
want to say good night to the flag — that flag that 
stands for the mother country you're working for 
and getting ready to fight for. That's what it 
means to stand retreat. You come out here and say 
good night to your mother. And listen, fellows, be- 
fore you come out here for that, always go into the 
barrack and slick up a bit — see ? You know : brush 
your hair and wash your hands and face and shine 
your shoes and tidy up a little. You know, you 
fellows — you American soldiers — are the only 
men in the wide, wide world who can stand retreat 
to that flag ! You know that ? Even the President 
of the United States can only watch us do it. He 
can't stand retreat to that flag, and we can; and 
when we do we want to spruce up a little." 



34 The Yanks are Coming! 

The captain is silent for a minute, and those men 
in the ranks are silent too ! 

" And then about standing at attention while the 
flag goes down," the captain goes on. " You notice 
the flag doesn't touch the ground. A corporal gath- 
ers it in his arms and puts it away for the night. 
You see, it is our job as American citizens to take 
care of that flag. So when you come out here to 
say good night to it, you're not standing up straight 
and sticking out your chest for nothing. You mean 
something by it. When you stand up there like a 
man and throw your chest out, you are saying to 
the wide, wide world : ' Look me over. I'm an 
American soldier, and I'm. taking care of that flag 
up there. If you think you're going to do anything 
to that flag up there, come see me first — and hit 
me if you dare ! ' That's why you stand up straight 
and stick out your chest, boys ; that's what you mean 
when you stand at attention." 

The men break ranks and file silently into the 
barrack. In the gathering dark we cross the street 
and speak to the captain. 



A New Idea and a New Army 35 

" Pretty tough-looking outfit, this last bunch you 
got, captain," I say to him. 

" The Germans'll find 'em tough," he prophesies. 

" Think you can teach them discipline and get 
them really to working enthusiastically? " I ask. 

** Say, if you think those fellows aren't just as 
good Americans as any one else, you think again," 
the captain retorts sharply. " All they need is to 
get the idea. See what I mean ? We give 'em the 
idea and once they get it they're just as good Ameri- 
cans as any of us. Do you realize that when some 
of these fellows think of the United States all they 
see is a slum neighborhood in the city or some grimy 
factory town ? Do you realize that the highest rep- 
resentative of American authority that some of 
those fellows have ever known is a cop on the beat 
or some little grafting politician ? All these fellows 
need is to be told a little something — that's all." 

The captain is silent for a minute, and we all 
look about us. The scene is familiar to any one 
who has ever been acquainted with a frontier boom 
camp. Crowds of tired workmen go trudging by, 



36 The Yanks are Coming! 

indistinct in the gathering dark and the dusty haze. 
A wide-hatted man on horseback goes galloping past 
us, the profile of his face and hat showing black and 
distinct against the western sky. Crowds of men 
are forcing their way in and out of the dim-lit, un- 
painted commissariat. Somewhere in the distance 
— thanks be ! — a quartet is attempting harmony. 
From the dusk all about us comes the sound of men 
laughing, cursing, calling out jests and gossip. It 
is very like a boom town save that there are no 
drunks lying about to be stumbled over. For yet 
another blessing, join me in thanks! It is near full 
dark now, and all the barracks are alight. From 
miles away we see the gleam of lights within the 
limits of Camp Upton. We get some sense of the 
physical immensity of the place. When the cap- 
tain speaks again there is a huskiness of emotion in 
his voice. 

" All this has grown from an idea in the brain of 
General Wood," he says, with an indicative sweep 
of his arm. " These boys are now going through 
what we went through at Plattsburg. General 



A New Idea and a New Army 37 

Wood told us up there, and we are telling these boys 
down here. Thev only need to be told." 



Ill 
ADOPTING THE NEW IDEA 

Now come with me on the following afternoon 
and stand in the company street before this barrack 
housing that tough-looking gang of casuals we saw 
stand their first retreat so sloppily. We hear a 
shouted order in the barrack. The men hurry out 
and fall in Hne. See that fellow there with his toes 
sticking out of his shoes? Do you notice that he 
has attempted to shine the ragged fragments of 
leather that remain on his feet? Do you get that? 
Look the whole bunch over. Do you get the fact 
that they've one and all made some pitiful stab at 
cleaning up their ragged, wrinkled clothes? Do 
you see that every man jack of that bad-looking 
bunch has washed his face and hands and tried to 
comb his hair? 

Now the lieutenant is calling them to attention. 



38 The Yanks are Coming! 

Look at that bunch straighten up. Look at them 
stick out their chests. Some of them have their 
chins stuck out instead of their chests, but they 
mean right. They've got the idea. Look at that 
foreign-looking Httle fellow over there with his 
shoulders back until they almost meet behind, and 
his skinny little chest jammed out in front until he 
looks like an amateur contortionist practicing a 
stunt. Look at the burlesque frown on his face. 
Do you think he's funny ? You bet you don't ! — 
and, like me, you could cheerfully kill the man that 
thought that little fellow comical in his effort prop* 
erly to stand retreat to the American flag on his 
second day as a soldier of the United States. He's 
standing there saying to the very best of his ex- 
pressive ability : " I am a soldier of the United 
States, guarding that flag up there, and I dare the 
■whole world to come and try to hurt it while I'm 
here." He doesn't look much like a soldier yet, but 
he's got the idea; he'll do. 

Look 'em over, you pessimist! Look 'em over, 
you man who doesn't believe that the United States 



A New Idea and a New Army 39 

is able to assimilate the racial food with which it 
has been so greatly fed and make good American 
flesh out of it by proper moral and educational 
hygiene ! 

Do you see how hard those fellows are trying 
within twenty-four hours of the time they were first 
gi\en a real, understandable hint of the right idea? 
Look at them and then bewail with me the tragic 
fact that it takes the horror of war so to humanize 
and practically democratize us that these men do 
get the right idea in spite of the rabid soap-boxer 
and the traitorous publication. And then fervently 
thank God with me that, through the necessity of 
war, we are making citizens of our soldiers while 
we are making soldiers of our citizens; thank God 
with me that our national army is proof of the 
power and elasticity of democracy rather than evi- 
dence of any necessity to ape the method or spirit 
of military autocracy to insure our continued ex- 
istence ! 

Our army is being made over to conform to the 
French organization not only physically, but spiritu- 



40 The Yanks are Coming! 

ally as well. I am no military expert and can't 
argue the point, but to any man who believes a class 
army necessary I say this : Look over the record 
of the modern democratic French army and gain 
from that what comfort you may in support of your 
behef. 

Just one bit of evidence that the new national 
army is democratic in spirit and fact as well as 
theory : Shortly before I visited the camp at Yap- 
hank, the son of a much-advertised millionaire, poli- 
tician, and philanthropist had arrived in camp and 
been mustered in as an ordinary buck private. The 
snob New York papers had done front-page justice 
to his leaving and his arrival. Not one officer 
mentioned the name of this young man to me! 
Not one officer told me any story about how 
well or ill the millionaire's son had taken to the 
Hfe! 

From one man in the ranks I heard this : 
" We all look alike when we get out here. This 
millionaire guy Perkins had the cot next to me in 
casuals for a while, and I didn't see him getting any 



A New Idea and a New Army 41 

gra\y that wasn't passed out to the rest of us. He 
wasn't a bad skate at that." 

" Where is he now ? " I asked. 

" Damfino," he rephed without interest. " I 
didn't take notice of where they sent him." 

He had bunked next to the man of milHons, found 
him a good skate, and parted from him without 
interest. The man of wealth was nothing in his 
young Hfe but an example to show that all men in 
the national army get cards from the same deck. 

IV 

HONEST-TO-GOODNESS OFFICERS 

The national army is democratic. The selected 
men are astonished to find the commissioned men — 
the officers — so thoroughly human and square and 
so generally lacking in snobbery or in any attempt 
to assert their authority for purposes of self-ag- 
grandizement. The officers are astonished to find 
the selected men almost universally eager for service 
and amenable to discipline. The men of the na- 



42 The Yanks are Coming! 

tional army, selected and commissioned, form a 
mutual astonishment and admiration society. 

I am told that the Jews were the first to see the 
elements of a miracle in the actual workings of the 
new national army. 

A week after the first quota of selected men ar- 
rived at Camp Upton and began their training as 
soldiers of the United States, a body of reporters 
from certain Jewish publications appeared at head- 
quarters and sought out Captain Richardson, the 
intelligence officer. " Who are these officers that 
are in charge of the men now ? " the spokesman of 
the group inquired. 

" They are reserve officers," Captain Richardson 
informed him. " Plattsburg graduates." 

" Well, how long are they going to have charge 
of the men?" the spokesman asked after a little 
hesitation. 

" Right along." 

"You mean all the time they're here?" the re- 
porter specified suspiciously. 

"Sure!" 



A New Idea and a New Army 43 

" Well, these officers are not going to P" ranee 
with the men, are they ? " 

" Sure they're going to France with the men. 
These officers you speak of are the only officers 
we've got. What made you think they weren't 
going to France with the men? " 

The reporter ran his fingers through his hair and 
stared at Captain Richardson from eyes that were 
expressive of a great perplexity. " Why, the men 
like these officers," he declared in astonishment. 
" Honest, they do. We supposed they'd probably 
have to go with some others before long." 

Do you see it, you readers? Those reporters 
couldn't believe that the men would be permitted to 
remain under officers that they actually liked; they 
couldn't believe that those Plattsburg men that were 
serving at Camp Upton were the real, honest-to- 
goodness army officers who are to train the men and 
go into the trenches with them when their time 
comes to go on the line. The substitution of kind- 
ness for cruelty and intelligence for stupidity in the 
handling of soldiers left them dazed. 



44 The Yanks are Coming! 

One of the selected men was an Austrian who 
had left his own country ten years before to escape 
military service. When he was taken in and pre- 
sented with a uniform he refused it. 

" I am a conscientious objector," he explained. 
" I don't believe that war is ever right, and I think 
that the United States is wrong in being in this war. 
I know I'll be shot for refusing to fight, but I'd 
rather be killed than carry a gun. I won't put this 
uniform on." 

A uniform was. put on him, and he was taken to 
this, that and the other officer, to no purpose. 

" You might as well have me shot at once," he 
insisted. " I think war is wrong, and I won't have 
anything to do with it." 

Finally the Austrian's case was laid before Gen- 
eral Bell, the commanding officer of the division. 

" Send him in here," said General Bell, " and 
leave him alone with me." 

For an hour and a half General Bell talked with 
that man. He explained the workings of interna- 
tional law; he gave time and thought to answering 



A New Idea and a New Army 45 

the man's objections intelligently. At the end of 
that time the Austrian said : " I've never under- 
stood these things before, I see why it is right that 
we should fight, and I will do my share. I'm sorry 
I've been so much trouble." 

"That's all right," said General Bell. "Any- 
thing else you'd like to settle while you're here? " 

"I'd like to be transferred, general. The men 
I've been with think I'm a coward, and they'll hound 
me if I go back there." 

" We'll transfer you," the general agreed. 
"Anything else?" 

" There is one thing more," the man admitted 
hesitantly. " Yom Kippur.begins to-night, and I'm 
a Jew. All the other boys in camp of my faith are 
going to their homes for to-night and to-morrow, 
but I don't suppose you'll let me off after all the 
trouble I've made." 

" We certainly will," General Bell assured him. 
He looked at his watch. " You've only got fifteen 
minutes to make that train, and it's three miles to 
the station." 



46 The Yanks are Coming! 

He called an orderly and handed the erstwhile 
conscientious objector over to him. "Take this 
man down to my car and have him taken to the sta- 
tion in time for that next train," the general or- 
dered. " You'll have to hurry." 

The man made the train in the general's car and 
spent Yom Kippur at his home in New York City. 
More than that, he was back in camp right on time 
ready and wiUing for service. 

General Bell gave him the idea! Do you see it? 
He gave him the idea and saved a good man for 
democracy. We can use a man who is willing to 
be shot for what he believes to be right. 

I called in. to see Captain W. F. Perry of the mus- 
tering office. Every man who goes in or out of the 
service at Camp Upton passes through his depart- 
ment. When I met him he had been at work for 
twenty-four hours without an interval of sleep, and 
I submit that a man who has done that is not in 
any unusually amiable frame of mind. I am will- 
ing to believe that any casual act of courtesy shown 
by a man under those circumstances is not greater 



A New Idea and a New Army ^y 

than customary. He was telling me of the men 
who had been rejected by the examiners at Camp 
Upton after having been passed by their local 
boards. " Some of the boards were either careless 
or too harsh," he said wearily. " We don't want 
any man in the army who on account of dependents 
or physical disability really ought not to be here. 
Would you like to see some of the men we are turn- 
ing back ? " 

I said I would and followed him to a room where 
the rejects were lined up in chairs along the wall 
waiting for their discharges to be given them. The 
captain was telling why the different men were be- 
ing sent back when he broke off in the middle of a 
sentence and plucked my sleeve. 

" Let's step outside to talk about them," he whis- 
pered to me. " I suppose some of them feel a cer- 
tain disgrace in having been found unfit; and it's 
not quite fair to stare at them when they have to sit 
there and take it, is it? " 

It was a very little thing, but the very little thing 
is sometimes most truly indicative of the big thing 



48 The Yanks are Coming! 

that is hidden or dissembled. No man need fear 
service with the officer who can be careful, even 
in the extremity of his weariness, not to em- 
barrass men under his authority; no society need 
fear the system which produces officers like that 
as a type. 

Don't imagine that because the spirit of democ- 
racy is dominant in the national army observance of 
necessary military form and discipline is lacking. 

Come with me once more and see what Captain 
Green of Company B, 302d Engineers, has to say to 
his men on this matter. 

The men have been drilling and are sitting under 
a tree here at the edge of the camp. Captain Green 
is talking. We'll edge up and listen. 

" Boys, I want you to get the right idea of the 
salute," he is saying. " I don't want you to think 
that you are being compelled to salute me as an in- 
dividual. No! When you salute me, you are 
simply rendering respect to the power I represent; 
and the power I represent is you. Now, let me ex- 
plain. You elect the President of the United 



A New Idea and a New Army 49 

States, and the President of the United States 
grants me a commission to represent his authority 
in this army. His only authority is the authority 
that you vest in him when you elect him President. 
Now, when you salute an officer, you salute not the 
man, but the representative of your own authority. 
The salute is going to be rigidly enforced in this 
army, and I want you boys to get the right idea 
of it. I want you to know what you salute and 
why." 

There it is again. Giving them the right idea! 
Explaining the reason for an act before ordering 
its performance — educating instead of compell- 
ing- 

So much for the officers of the army at Camp 
Upton and their attitude. I have no room here for 
further multiplication of incidents illustrative of the 
sincerely democratic and humane spirit with which 
those Plattsburg graduates are animated. The ex- 
amples I have given are typical of the rule and not 
the exception. It is not bull. 



50 The Yanks are Coming I 

V 
IN THE RANKS 

Now let's buzz around and find out what the men 
— selected by the President of the United States, if 
you please, to serve in the ranks of the national 
army — think about it all. While listening to a 
captain explaining the meaning of retreat we had 
a pretty good look at a representative body of men 
of no vocational training, from the slum districts 
and the river front ; and now let's go over and have 
a look at an organization of trade and professional 
men. I know one of the boys in Company B of the 
302d Engineers. He came out here with the first 
quota, and he is the best the camp can offer in the 
way of a veteran. We will see what we can find 
out from him. 

It's only a little after mess now, but the men have 
finished cleaning their kits and are nearly all in bar- 
racks. We walk into a spacious, electric-lit room, 
lined with cots. This slim young fellow is my 
friend Dick. The dozen or more of snappy, up- 



A New Idea and a New Army 51 

standing boys he introduces us to are his immediate 
close friends in the company. They are just ordi- 
nary Americans. They aren't rich, and they aren't 
poor. Most of them are not college men, yet most 
of them look as though they might be. They are 
contractors, architects, draftsmen, plumbers, me- 
chanics. What are you reminded of as we sit here 
on this cot, surrounded by this crowd of polite, 
eager, jesting young men? Visiting in a college 
f rat house ? Isn't that it ? Sure ! And notice the 
number of fellows sitting on their cots with books 
in their hands! They're not casual readers. 
" What are they studying, Dick? " we ask. 

" Books on military tactics and technical work," 
he tells us. " Some of them are studying French. 
Nine-tenths of the men of this company spend their 
every spare minute working up on technical stuff, 
studying military books or French. I'm boning 
hard trying to recall what I once knew about sur- 
veying." 

" How did the study habit come to be acquired 
out here all of a sudden? " I ask. 



52 The Yanks are Coming! 

" Commission," he answers eagerly. " Captain 
Green has told us that we've all of us, every man in 
this company, got a darned good chance for a com- 
mission ; and he's not kidding us either. There are 
not going to be any more Plattsburg schools, they're 
going to need more officers, and we're all out after 
a commission." 

His friends agree earnestly and discuss the possi- 
bilities. Some of them drift away and are soon 
deep in books. Hear that fellow on the cot behind 
us, trying out his French pronunciation on a friend ? 
Who's that busy person so earnestly buttonholing 
every man he meets ? Acts like a subscription pest ! 
" He's raising a fund to get a piano here for the 
barracks, and helping form the Glee Club," we are 
told. 

The atmosphere of study, subscription for a 
piano, and a glee club forming! What did I tell 
you about this being like a college frat house? 
Now let's ask Dick a question or two. 

" Dick, you've been out here from the beginning ; 
what do you think has been the most general effect 



A New Idea and a New Army 53 

of the camp on the men who've come out here? I 
mean all the men; good, bad, indifferent, high, low, 
educated and ignorant? " 

" They're learning to root for the United States," 
he answers without hesitation. 

" Do you think they didn't root for the United 
States before they came out here? " I ask. 

" Not as men root for a college or a political or- 
ganization," he says. 

" When the boys came down to the ferry to start 
for camp they marched along cheering for their 
exemption boards," he goes on in explanation. 
" Then, after they got out here and were assigned 
to barracks they marched through the streets cheer- 
ing for their barracks. Then they were split up and 
assigned to the various and differing branches of the 
service for which they happened to be fitted, and for 
a few nights there was the lonesomest and most 
miserable bunch of fellows out here that you ever 
saw. They were absolutely lost. They felt that 
they didn't belong to anything or anybody. And 
then, sir, they began to fit into their new jobs with 



54 The Yanks are Coming! 

the feeling that the job at hand was the job to which 
they belonged ; they began to make friends with the 
men they were thrown with because the men were 
Americans at the same job, and they began to feel at 
home because they were citizens and soldiers of the 
United States, doing work for the United States. 
They began to feel themselves a part of the United 
States of America in as personal a way as they had 
felt their relation to their exemption boards when 
they marched down to the ferry. They began to 
feel toward the United States and all the people of 
the United States as they had felt toward their own 
particular neighborhoods, friends, barracks, and 
personal comrades; and that, sir, was when they 
began to learn to root for the United States." 

Learning to root for the United States in the 
sixteen great cantonments of the national army! 
Hundreds of thousands, and perhaps several mil- 
lions of men, are to pass through those cantonments 
shortly — all learning to root for the United States ! 

There has been doubt as to the quality of the 
amalgam resultant from the fusion of the various 



A New Idea and a New Army 55 

racial metals that have been poured into the melting 
pot in such great quantities within the past fifty 
years. The amalgam is all right, but the proper 
mold in which to fashion it in the shape of an 
American has been lacking. The sixteen canton- 
ments of the national army are the democratic 
molds in which this country's more or less shapeless 
human compound of yesterday is being fashioned 
into the form of real American citizenship. 

VI 

TO COMFORT THE KAISER 

We have seen many stories in the daily papers 
about the attempts of eligible men to evade service 
in the national army. Sad commentary on the 
quality of American manhood! Tragic! But let's 
find out about it definitely. I'll call on Captain 
Harrigan, Co. I, 307th Infantry, and ask him what 
he knows about it. " You say you've heard con- 
siderable talk about the men not wanting to serve? " 
Captain Harrigan says. " Where'd you hear it?" 



56 The Yanks are Coming I 

" Why, I hear a lot of talk about it around New- 
York, and see many stories to that effect in the 
newspapers." 

" I thought so. You won't hear any of that kind 
of talk around here. I'll take my oath that I haven't 
got a man in my company that isn't glad to be here. 
And I want to tell you that for every eligible man 
who tries to get out of service there are fifty re- 
jected men ouf here who beg to stay with us. I'll 
give you an example right now. See that fellow 
coming down the hall? They rejected him up at 
the hospital for some physical cause, and he's been 
begging ever since for another examination. He 
doesn't want to get out of the service. He's begged 
so hard to stay with us that I'm going to send him 
back for another examination and see if I can't pass 
him." 

He introduces me to the man in question, 
a slim, light-haired fellow, still in civilian 
clothes. "What's your job in civil life?" I ask 
him. 

" A clerk in Wall Street," he tells me. 



A New Idea and a New Army 57 

" You want to stay with this bunch and fight, 
do you ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" Why do you want to fight? " 

That stumped him for a minute. 

" Because I think Germany is wrong and the 
United States is right," he said after a Httle. " Be- 
cause this country gives my mother and father a 
square deal and gives me a square deal; and now 
I feel like I ought to fight for it. That's the way I 
feel about it." 

" What's your name ? " 

He tells me. It is as German as sauerkraut. 

" What's your nationality? " I ask. 

" American," he answers hotly. 

" I know. So am I American, though some of 
my folks away back were Scotch, some were Irish, 
and some were English. What were yours ? " 

" German." This after hesitation. 

"How far back?" 

He flushes, looks about him furtively, and puts 
his lips close to my ear. 



58 The Yanks are Coming! 

" Say, don't tell anybody this," he begs. " My 
grandfather was an officer in the Prussian army. 
What's that got to do with it? My father and 
mother are good Americans, and I'm a good Ameri- 
can too; you bet! " 

Help yourself to what aid and comfort you can 
get from that boy's attitude, Mr. W. Hohenzollem ! 
It's no treason to offer you such. 

A young man came to a company officer crying. 
" They turned me back at the hospital," he wailed. 
" They say I've got something the matter with me. 
Maybe I have, but I can march and fight, captain. 
I want to be in on this thing. Isn't there something 
you can do for me ? " 

The young man was reexamined and found in 
good condition. He's in uniform to-day and happy. 
Judging from the worry he caused his own officers 
when they tried to lose him, he'll prove interestingly 
irritating to any enemy he makes after. 

A tough-looking customer with a blue eye and 
the manners and look of a gangster was examined 
and found below par. He was rejected. He went 



A New Idea and a New Army 59 

to the lieutenant who had him in charge and de- 
clared he wouldn't leave camp. 

" Say ! I been fightin' all me life for nothin'/' 
he said. " Now I got a chanct to fight for some- 
thin' worth fightin' for, an' they're goin' to bar me 
out. Nothin' stirrin' ! Here I am, an' here I stay 
— get me? If I go back, I'll just go to boozin' an' 
fightin' for nothin' again, an' here I can't get booze 
an' I got a chanct to fight for somethin' real. Here 
I stay." 

The lieutenant told the man he couldn't stay, but 
he did. He stayed at the barracks and worked like 
a horse to prove how useful he could be. Finally 
the lieutenant took him back to the hospital and ex- 
plained the case. They reexamined him and found 
him O. K. That man is out there now, in uniform, 
away from the booze and getting ready to fight for 
something real. 

A company officer noticed a man standing at at- 
tention with his right hand held behind him. 
" Hold your hand at your side ! " the officer in- 
structed him. " Not behind your back." 



6o The Yanks are Coming! 

The man took his hand from behind him after 
some hesitation, and the captain saw that the trigger 
finger was missing. " How did you get past the 
physician of the exemption board with your trigger 
finger missing? " 

" Oh, I told 'em I'd be all right, an' they let me 
by." 

" Well, you're not all right. We can't have you 
in the army with your trigger finger gone." 

The man began to plead. He could pull a trigger 
with his second finger. 

" An' I can beat a drum, captain," he urged as a 
qualification. " I may be shy a finger, but you'd 
never know it when I beat the drum. Can't I stay 
an' beat a drum or do something? " 

That man is now in the army. He's short on 
fingers, but long on other qualifications that count 
in a democratic army, and the regulations were 
stretched some way to let him slide through. 

Captain Ruddy, in charge of the examination 
work of the hospital where every man is looked over 
prior to being mustered in, was showing me the 



A New Idea and a New Army 6l 

room in which the men's eyes are examined. 
" Here's where the mahngering is attempted," he 
said. " If any man wants to get out of service, 
here's where he tries to make his bluff." 

" What percentage of the total attempt malinger- 
ing, captain?" I asked. 

He figured mentally for a moment. 

" I can give you only an approximate guess, of 
course, but I should say about one-fifth of i per 
cent." 

The examples given are illustrations of the rule 
and not the exception. We hear most frequently 
of the exception because the exception is news and 
attracts notice to itself. Break open one thousand 
eggs, nine hundred and ninety-nine of which are 
good, and the one that will force itself upon your 
attention is the one that is rotten. 

When you hear of a man attempting to evade 
service, remember that he is the one-thousandth 
egg and be comforted by the thought of the re- 
maining nine hundred and ninety-nine that do not 
smell. 



()2 The Yanks are Coming! 

yii 

GOOD SPIRIT 

Everywhere in that great cantonment one may 
feel a something of which tangible evidence may not 
be produced — something that I shall call good 
spirit. Everywhere heads up and chests out ; every- 
where bustle and rush, and the snap in performance 
that speaks of work gladly done. 

To one who feels the presence of good spirit as 
I felt it the question inevitably presents itself: 
Why, since these men are so almost universally 
willing and eager for service, did they not volunteer 
before they were selected for the national army? 
I put the question to a company officer. 

" The majority of these men, while they may not 
have had total dependents, were aiding some relative 
or family group in some way," he told me. " They 
felt a divided obligation and were not sure of their 
specific duty at a specific time. When the Govern- 
ment said : ' Now it's your time to serve,' they 
came gladly and with a clear conscience. If their 



A New Idea and a New Army 63 

leaving civil life has put a semihardship on certain 
of their relatives, the decision v^^as not of their mak- 
ing. The Government, knowing their status and 
condition in life, called them by name and said: 
' I need you now.' When that definite call came to 
them they were glad to answer it. Some others had 
no understanding of an obligation to serve. They 
came out here simply because they have to come, 
but once they get out here they see things in a dif- 
ferent light. They begin to understand why it is 
necessary for them to serve. We explain to them 
why they are brought here, and tell them about the 
job that we've got to do. As soon as they get the 
right idea they're just as anxious for service as any 
one else." 

VIII 

THE DRAFTED MAN 

And now let us speak with tact and caution, but 
frankly withal, of a matter that needs frank men- 
tion. Immediately subsequent to the declaration of 
war the President earnestly advised the selective 



64 The Yanks are Coming! 

draft as the best possible way of raising the best 
possible army. Some senators and some newspa- 
pers cried out against the system, on the ground 
that a drafted man was a disgraced man. This was 
vehemently denied by the Administration spokes- 
men and the majority of the press. We were told 
that the draft was in no sense a disgrace, but simply 
permitted a more scientific selection of the proper 
fighting men than the volunteer system, 

A New York newspaper vehemently denounced 
Speaker Clark for intimating that a certain stigma 
would attach to a conscripted man. In the Sunday 
issue of that same paper there is a page devoted to 
pictures of soldiers at play. There are pictures of 
men of the National Guard and the regular army. 
Under these pictures are captions telling how happy 
these men are. Under a picture of soldiers boxing 
I read the following : " Even when he's drafted 
he gets fun with the gloves — this is at Yap- 
hank." 

Even when he is drafted! That line is indicative 
of the existence of a very unjust attitude. Our 



A New Idea and a New Army 65 

President and his spokesmen assured the American 
man that there was no disgrace in the draft; the ma- 
jority of the patriot press pledged its word to him 
that this was true. And we should be careful to 
withhold no due measure of glory from the Ameri- 
can man who took the word of his President and 
his press and waited for the draft. The men who 
have been selected through the draft are learning 
how to go over the top in our defense, and when they 
go they'll bare their flesh willingly to the steel and 
lead. We should be careful to deny no reward of 
pride to them or their families. 

One further instance of the spiritual alchemy of a 
real democracy that is working miracles with the 
hearts of men in the national army : 

On my last day in camp I accidentally met an 
acquaintance who had been selected. He is an 
artist, a young man in his early twenties. Three 
years ago he came to New York just out of art 
school. He got a fortunate grip on the commercial 
end of the art game, and the first year in New York 
he made five thousand dollars. Plis income in the 



66 The Yanks are Coming! 

last two years went like the price of living. He is a 
handsome boy, popular, and luxury-loving. He 
lived in a manner that would make a prince re- 
nounce all claim to his succession and take out nat- 
uralization papers here in the hope of being able 
to command real elegance of surroundings some 
time. He had a wide circle of admiring friends, 
plenty of money, good health, and a keen taste for 
the life he was leading. I knew that he had gone to 
camp reluctantly. I had hoped to avoid meeting 
him because I had no wish to listen to his tale of woe. 
Half-heartedly I shook hands with him and put the 
question: "Well, Dan, how goes it?" 

" It goes great," he answered instantly. " The 
whole thing is immense. I never felt so well in my 
life, and I'm in with' a bunch of bully good fellows. 
I'm keen for the whole business." 

My expression must have been telltale of the 
astonishment I felt, for he laughed and reiterated 
the assurance of enthusiasm. 

" I mean what I say," he declared earnestly. " I 
hated to come, because I thought it was going to be 



A New Idea and a New Army 67 

pretty rotten out here ; but it's fine. New York and 
the old crowd there seem a million years away. I 
went in Saturday on leave and had dinner at the 
Astor with the bunch. I didn't like it. It seemed 
so damn cheap and silly after having been out here 
working with this crowd on this big job. I didn't 
even stay out my leave. I came back early Sunday 
morning, and I don't care if I never see New York 
and the old crowd again until after this job's done. 
It doesn't seem possible even to me, but this is the 
truth. Now that I am in this thing, I like it. I 
mean that; I like it fine." 



IX 

A COMMON PURPOSE 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of 
the Lord! 

Whenever I happened to be alone for a little dur- 
ing the period of my stay in the camp those words 
sang in my mind. Over and over again I mentally 
repeated them, without conscious reason, until they 



68 The Yanks are Coming! 

became an irritation to me. I tried to banish the 
line from my thought and was the more irritated 
when I found I could not. 

The rhythmically clicking wheels of the train that 
bore me away from Upton reintroduced the bother- 
some line to my mind. 

And suddenly I understood. Mine eyes had in- 
deed seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ; they 
had witnessed the glory of the coming of some meas- 
ure of the Christ spirit into the minds and methods 
of American manhood in the hour of that manhood's 
answer to the challenge of bestiality trumpeted 
throughout the world. I had seen men in the uni- 
form of army officers who were not ashamed nor 
tardy in answering a loud and proud "Aye!" to 
the question " Am I my brother's keeper ? " 

I had seen that learning submission to proper 
discipline did not necessarily mean abasement; but 
that the administration of necessary authority is not 
necessarily autocratic. I had seen the American 
boy learning how to work and obey and endure re- 
strictions for the accomplishment of a national and 



A New Idea and a New Army 69 

a humanitarian end. I had seen the man of lower 
degree learning that the man of education and money 
is capable of unselfish sacrifice, and I had seen the 
man of education and money learning that the man 
of lower degree — the man but recently accredited 
as an American citizen, the peddler, the buttonhole 
worker, the common laborer, typical of what we have 
become accustomed to refer to in our vocabulary of 
snobbery as the lower classes — is willing and eager 
to serve, once he " gets the idea," and that he is 
ready and willing to receive the idea when it is prop- 
erly presented to him. I had seen men of all de- 
grees and conditions of life coming to know and 
trust one another in the common brotherhood of 
American citizenship in service. In the national 
army cantonment at Camp Upton I had seen the be- 
ginning of a new heaven and a new earth; a heaven 
of devotion to a common ideal wherein all men strive 
as one for the accomplishment of a common purpose, 
and a new earth of absolute democracy where Jew 
and Gentile, rich and poor, native and foreign born, 
start absolutely at scratch and gain their places in 



70 The Yanks are Coming! 

the race according to their individual capacity and 
nothing else. 

And, oh, you men of the national army who have 
been commissioned by the President of the United 
States to serve as officers, as leaders, as educators, 
keep alive within yourselves the cleansing flame of 
idealism. Don't let the monotony of custom dim 
its glow. You are making the world safe for de- 
mocracy, there in camp, as much as you ever can by 
fighting the enemy. You have not only the oppor- 
tunity to fight and whip the enemy, but you have the 
opportunity now of licking the spirit of antidemoc- 
racy, the spirit of class, the spirit of the hatred of 
man for man in these United States. You are not 
only defending democracy against assaults from 
without, but against assaults from within as well. 
You have the opportunity now to forestall any future 
possibility of the infliction upon this, our democracy, 
of that blight of anarchy which is deadening Russia. 
You have started right. In the name of your God 
and His humanity, keep up the work in the splendid 
spirit with which you have begun it. For that spirit 



A New Idea and a New Army yi 

is the power which can make possible the continued 
existence and ultimate complete triumph of absolute 
democracy, safe from autocracy on the one hand and 
anarchy on the other. 



THE YANKS ARE COMING! 
I 

BEING PROPERLY INTRODUCED 

" Is everybody up here in New England as easy to 
get acquainted with as you fellows ? " 

A young lieutenant asked that question of a num- 
ber of Down East officers and Boston newspaper 
men gathered in a hotel at Ayer, Mass. The young 
lieutenant had that day arrived in Ayer on transfer 
from a post in the Southwest to Camp Devens, the 
National Army cantonment of New England. 1 
had been about with him for some hours in company 
with several other officers and newspaper men, and 
had noticed that he was very ill at ease. His mental 
attitude seemed to be a compound of astonishment 
and diffidence. He terminated a long and thought- 
ful silence with his abrupt question, 

" Why, I guess so," a reporter told him. " Did 
72 




Copyright by L'lidLTuood & Underwood, X. Y. 

AKMY KXGIXEERS BUILDING ROADS AT CAMP DEVENS 



The Yanks are Coming! y^ 

you think the people up here would be hard to get 
acquainted with ? " 

*' I sure did ! " the young lieutenant from the West 
declared explosively. " Why, doggone me, I been 
just worrying my head off about it all the way 
across the country. When the folks out West 
found out I was coming here they rubbed it into me 
for fair. * Good night ! ' they said. * Why, you'll 
be a year with them people up there in New England 
before they'll even so much as speak to you ! ' Why, 
the way they told it to me out there, you people up 
here was just plain hell on a fellow that wasn't born 
in this neck of the woods. I sure thought I was in 
for a lonesome time of it here. I felt more like a 
stranger comin' up here than I would goin' to 
France. That's a fact ! But, shucks ! As far as 
I can see, you people are just like anybody else ! " 

The lieutenant was no ignoramus. He was a 
moderately successful business man in the Middle 
West before he sold out and threw in with the Gov- 
ernment to help lick Germany. He's a man of at 
least average intelligence who has given up all im- 



74 The Yanks are Coming! 

mediate personal interests to fight for America. 
And yet the land and people that comprise a large 
and vital part of America were as alien to his thought 
as the land and people of a foreign country. The 
America for which he enlisted to fight was the 
Middle West. The only Americans with whom he 
had any practical supporting sense of comradely 
touch were the Americans of the Middle West. 

To that fellow's mind the French troops were far 
more real as supporting comrades than the soldiers 
of New England. He'd been reading a great deal 
about the French for the past three years; France 
was closer to him than Maine. America is a co- 
hesive whole only in geographical fact and ultimate 
intent. 

If I were backed into some tough corner, facing a 
mean scrap with a mess of plug-uglies, every one of 
whom had it on me in the matter of condition and 
fistic ability, and I suddenly became aware that, in- 
stead of being obliged to step into it alone, I had 
four husky, willing pals from my own home town 
right alongside of me, ready to go all the way 



The Yanks are Coming! 75 

through, I think I'd fight better. I beheve 1 would. 
Not more desperately perhaps, but with more of the 
cunning that goes with hope. At least I'd wade in 
with a considerably increased expectation of being 
around and able to wade out again when it was all 
over. 

America is a cohesive zvhole only in geographical 
fact and ultimate intent. To-day there are five boys 
from America wading, unafraid, into the dirtiest 
fight in all history. They're all from the same home 
town, but they've lived on dififerent blocks and have 
never been properly introduced. Each has heard 
of the other four. Each has heard that the others 
are coming in on this scrap, and yet not one of those 
boys really understands — practically feels — the 
backing of the others. They need an introduction. 
Permit me : Mr. New York, Mr. South, Mr. Mid- 
dle West, Mr. Far West — meet Mr. New England. 
He's with you in this thing, and you ought to know 
him. He's done some tall scrapping in his day and, 
while he's older than the rest of you, he's still there 
with the wallop in each mitt. 



-76 The Yanks are Coming! 

II 
STEALING THE REGIMENT 

If the punishment promised sinners by the old- 
hne evangeHsts were to be properly inflicted by 
means of cold rather than heat, a thermometer in 
the lower regions would register the identical degree 
of temperature that thermometers registered in 
Camp Devens on New Year's Eve. Where a man 
stopped there rose from the hard snow a querulous 
whine of protest. There was a frost-burnished 
moon in the icy-clear, steely-looking sky. Looking 
in every direction from where I stood with a camp 
correspondent on a deserted company street, I could 
see lighted barracks. A considerable scattering of 
pine trees, left standing by order of some camp con- 
structor with an eye for beauty, mottled the scene 
with purplish-black splotches of mystery that saved 
it from any factorylike utilitarian sordidness. 

From the curtained barrack of a trench-mortar 
battery near by came the sound of music and laugh- 
ter. The officers of the regiment were giving a 



The Yanks are Coming! yy 

dance. The reporter and I went in. The place was 
cleverly camouflaged with pine greenery and gay 
streamers. A hundred or more ladies, who with 
their escorts had dined well in the men's mess hall, 
were dancing upstairs. The colonel of the regiment 
suddenly stepped aside from his partner and held 
up his hand for silence. 

"Wasn't that a bugle?" he asked of a captain 
standing near. 

" Yes," the captain answered casually. " Over 
in the supply train, I think." 

" It sounded to me as though it were in the regi- 
ment." 

" Oh, no. I'm sure you are mistaken." 

The reporter beckoned to me, and I followed him 
outside. " I told you you'd see something if you 
stuck around to-night," he said as we broke into a 
stumbling run over the icy ground. 

"What's doing?" I panted, sliding along beside 
him. 

" They're stealing the regiment," he told me. 
" Hurry up; they're forming now." 



78 The Yanks are Coming! 

Stealing the regiment ! I had visions of Prussian 
abductors burglarizing the barracks. I could see 
shadowy lines of men forming before the building. 
I heard sharp orders and the chimelike irregularity 
of sound made by men counting off. One-two- 
three- four ; One-two-three- four. I heard the march- 
ing order all about me, and columns of men swung 
briskly by, serious and orderly. We dodged in and 
out among the buildings till we came out upon a 
main road, where we found the entire regiment 
drawn up in marching order. A captain rushed up 
and grasped my friend by the shoulder. 

" What's the matter ? " he asked nervously, gnaw- 
ing at his knuckles. " We're ready for them. 
Are they going to mess it up? Oh, it's too 
much for them ; we ought not to have let them try 
it!" 

A sergeant stepped up and smartly saluted the 
nervous captain. 

" Ready for us, sir? " 

" Yes, yes. Is everything all right ? " 

" Just waiting the word, sir." 



The Yanks are Coming! 79 

The sergeant took three steps that placed him at 
the head of the regiment. 

"Forward — march!" he shouted. The order 
went bounding down the hne, tossed from throat to 
throat by the battery commanders. The cokimn 
was on the march. My friend and I raced on ahead 
back toward the battery where the dance was being 
held. 

" Quickest promotion on record," my friend 
chuckled. " That man was a sergeant when he 
saluted the captain, and when he gave the order to 
march he was a colonel." 

"What's it all about?" 

"The noncoms have stolen the regiment. 
They've turned out the entire outfit without the aid 
of a single commissioned officer; and they're going 
to march it in review before the colonel as a New 
Year's present. As far as I can find out, it's been 
done only once before in the history of the United 
States army, and never with as large a regiment 
as this. 

" They asked permission of some of the captains, 



8o The Yanks are Coming! 

but the colonel knows nothing of it. It's a surprise 
to him." 

The sergeant, who was a colonel for the night, was 
the head of the receiving department of a large fac- 
tory in Dover, N. H., before he was selected to 
serve in the National Army. As he marched past 
regimental headquarters at the head of the outfit, a 
man stepped out and waved a greeting. The man 
was Sergeant-Major Fred N. Beck with, who on 
that New Year's night ceased to be mayor of Dover, 
one of the largest cities in the State. Of such is the 
National Army. 

In the barrack where the officers were dancing a 
captain signed to the colonel of the regiment: 
" Will you step outside a moment, colonel ? Friends 
to see you." 

The colonel followed, puzzled. In front of the 
barrack he mounted a hastily erected reviewing 
stand. The regimental band crashed into action, 
and the notes of the horns rang on that icy air 
like splintering glass. The musicians swung into 
view around the comer, followed by a shadowy 



The Yanks are Coming! 8l 

line of men marching smartly in a column of 
fours. 

The Yanks were coming : the Yanks of Maine and 
New Hampshire; the Yanks of mill and shipyard; 
slim, patrician-looking Yanks of shop and office; 
lean, lined, hardy Yanks of the farm and the forest; 
husky, wide-striding Yanks of the lumber camps and 
the upper lakes — the Yanks of the 303d Heavy Ar- 
tillery! They were coming fifteen hundred strong 
in perfect marching order under the command of 
men who four months ago didn't know fours right 
from forward march. 

The Yanks were coming. They were coming 
proudly to present to their colonel as a New Year's 
gift evidence that they had been learning well the 
work of the soldier. 

The sergeant who was a colonel for the night came 
opposite the reviewing stand at the head of the regi- 
ment that was his for the night and snapped his 
hand to his hat brim in smart salute. As the com- 
mand " Eyes right " crackled down the line the tem- 
porary colonel and his temporary staff — all non- 



82 The Yanks are Coming! 

corns who had won their warrants after having been 
selected in common with all the rest — wheeled out 
of line, marched up into the reviewing stand beside 
the permanent colonel and stood there at attention 
in review of their regiment passing in the moonlight. 

I wish that every one in America who is sick at 
heart — as I am — over the endless and unbelievably- 
petty wranglings and buck-passings of pestiferous 
politicians trying to ride the war to favor could have 
stood there with me that night ! I wish that every 
one who wonders — as I have wondered — whether 
we are an ally or a liability could have been with 
me. I wish that every one who is sick with shame 
— as I am — over the evidence of gun shortage 
could have stood there with me and watched those 
men go by. Lack of guns is criminally tragic, but 
only lack of men would be hopeless ! 

Red tape can be cut, factories can be speeded up, 
deadwood can be weeded out, guns can be made 
within a nominal time. It takes generation upon 
generation to turn out the stamp of men I saw go by 
me there in the moonlight. I don't know what their 



The Yanks are Coming! 83 

average height is, but they'll scale mighty close to 
six feet. 

And the way they marched! The way the non- 
coms handled their commands ! I don't know what 
America has failed to do since the declaration of 
war, but those marching men formed a smashing 
illustration of what she has done and is capable of 
doing, in the way of making soldiers. 

The last of the line passed the reviewing stand, 
swung off to the left, and disappeared behind a bar- 
rack. 

The permanent colonel turned to his tempo- 
rary substitute and thanked him formally. The 
temporary colonel saluted and became a sergeant 
again. The men who had marched disbanded 
quietly and returned to quarters. 

The regiment had been successfully stolen and 
successfully passed in review by men selected for 
military service from civil life but four short 
months previous. It was some demonstration of 
the things they had learned. 



84 The Yanks are Coming! 

Ill 
DISCIPLINE 

And the splendid respectful impudence of them! 
Those Yanks are more strictly formal in their atti- 
tude toward their officers than any body of American 
military men I've seen, excluding the old regular 
army. They give a snappy decisive salute. They 
stand very straight and stiff at attention. They look 
their officers square spang in the eye with a very 
unmistakable expression: an expression which 
says: 

" Mr. Man, I'll take orders from you because it's 
a rule of the game that we've both got to play to lick 
Germany. I'll stand for all this discipline because 
I guess, after all, it's the only successful way to run 
an army. But, ding-bust your hide, don't you run 
away with the idea that you're a better man than I 
am, 'cause you ain't! Get that, mister? You 
ain't!" 

The colonel who watched those men pass in review 
is a stickler for discipline. But he maintains it 



The Yanks are Coming! 85 

among men, and he knows it. Near to midnight 
New Year's Eve a crowd of men surrounded the 
barrack where the dance was going on and gave three 
cheers for the officers. After a Httle they gave three 
cheers for the ladies. The colonel pushed his way- 
through the crowd and hurried outside. I followed 
him. He stood before his men in the moonlight and 
held up his hand for silence. 

" Boys, I like every one of you," he said shakily. 
" I can't tell you how I appreciate what you've done 
to-night. You're a fine lot of fellows, and you've 
done great work. I hope we'll all be together again 
this time next year." 

He's a pretty good scout, that colonel! That's 
what the men of his regiment told me, and if they 
hadn't thought so they wouldn't have said it. 

At one minute of twelve the bugles in the regiment 
sounded taps. Two minutes later the brilHant notes 
of reveille called the New Year to its first arising. 
The year that heard our declaration of intent had 
become a page in the book of history; the year that 
is to see our initial great sacrifice and trial was a 



86 The Yanks are Coming! 

present reality. In a distant barrack a crowd of 
men were singing " Over There." Lustily they 
roared it out : 

The Yanks are coming, 
The Yanks are coming, . . . 

You bet they are ! Now, I'm going to be a real 
old-fashioned provincial jingo for a minute. Given 
equal training and equipment, I believe those Yanks 
I saw on that icy hill that night can lick their num- 
ber of any race of men on the face of the earth. I 
can't help it. By heck, them's my 1918 sentiments! 

IV 

TYPICAL YANKS 

It is tradition that the Yanks are curious rather 
than communicative. A spy would have some diffi- 
culty getting information from them, either valuable 
or otherwise. A typical Yank hates a direct answer 
as a politician hates obscurity. A regular army 
captain at Camp Devens was making insurance allot- 
ments. He was very busy taking down ages, names, 




■^ 



TEE-IIEE, HEE-HEE ! GFESS ! ' 



The Yanks are Coming! 87 

etc. Enter a long, lean Vermonter with an im- 
modest Adam's apple, obtrusive buckteeth, and pale, 
blinky little blue eyes. He saluted, took off his hat, 
bowed, grinned, and waited. " How old are you? " 
the busy captain snapped, scarcely looking up. 
"What's your age? Come, come! Your age? 
How old are you ? " 

The Vermonter's mouth spread into a yet happier 
grin, countless wrinkles puckered the flesh about his 
little eyes until they were mere slits of blue; his 
Adam's apple bucked around on his windpipe like a 
Jap on a pole. Confidentially he leaned close to the 
busy captain and gave tongue according to his breed : 

" Tee-hee, heh-heh ! Guess ! " 

The Yanks only observe military form because 
they understand that it is necessary; but they don't 
like it and don't pretend to. In the early days of 
the camp an officer came upon a sentry, a short- 
spoken Cape-Codder, pacing his beat. 

" How goes it? " asked the officer. 

" Just's you see it," said the Cape-Codder disgust- 
edly, never varying his step. " Rack 'n forth." 



88 The Yanks are Coming! 

" Who goes there? " a sentry challenged a soldier 
shortly after the arrival of a fresh quota. 

"Aw, you wouldn't know me 'f I told you," the 
soldier insisted. " I only been here a few days." 

The officers of the 303d Artillery had to issue one 
order that was unique. They were compelled to 
order the men to remain in bed until reveille. 
Thrifty, industrious farmers and woodsmen from 
Maine and New Hampshire persisted in getting up 
at three-thirty or four o'clock in the morning, ac- 
cording to their habit, to sit around outside of bar- 
racks smoking while they waited for breakfast and 
cussed out the army as a very lazy institution for 
not starting business until away along five-thirty or 
six o'clock in the morning ! 

The Yanks do believe in food. There is one com- 
pany of infantry made up of men from Cape Cod 
and Martha's Vineyard. Their home folks sent 
them ten truck loads of jams and jellies and various 
preserves at one time. 

I messed with that company. The mess sergeant 
apologized for not having any milk for me to drink. 



The Yanks are Coming! 89 

" Don't 'spose you'd care for some sweet cider," 

he ventured. 

" I sure would. Where'd you get cider ? " 

*' Oh, the folks up home sent it down to us. Have 

all that you can drink," 

V 

THE SPIRIT OF '76 

The Yanks at Camp Devens are not, on the whole, 
adventuring men who would choose war for any 
reward of thrilling experience. They are home 
lovers. New England has been pretty well drained 
of its natural wanderers, and those who remain are 
those who are peculiarly attached to the soil and to 
their homes. They are a self-suflficient people, 
largely living their own lives in their own small 
circle, and Europe is a long way off to the thought 
of most of them. The men at Camp Devens are 
heroically willing to fight for their country. A camp 
correspondent said to me with tears in his eyes : " I 
wouldn't feel bad about these boys going over if 
they'd just kick a little more; but they're so damn 



90 The Yanks are Coming! 

willing and cheerful about it they've got my goat! " 
They're willing, cheerful, proud of themselves 
and their accomplishment, confident of their ability 
to do their work in battle. But I don't believe they 
have any general understanding of the absolute in- 
evitability of our part in this war. I wish that the 
War Department would relieve the N. A. men of 
one or two drill periods a week, assemble them, and 
have two-fisted fighting men from the Allied armies 
tell them first-hand truths about this war. The 
stilted utterances of experts in international law do 
no good. The voice of a statesman is wasted in 
camp for that purpose. What they need is the vivid 
truth from fighting men. They need to know from 
soldiers who have been on the line how utterly right- 
eous the brutalities of the German army have made 
our cause, and how absolutely inevitable was our 
participation in this war. The most popular song 
at Camp Devens is jocularly illustrative of a very 
general truth. It is called " Long Boy " : 

He was just a long, lean country gink 

From away out West where the hop-toads wink ; 



The Yanks are Coming! 91 

He was six feet two in his stockin' feet, 
But he kep' gittin' thinner the more he'd eat. 
Yet he was as brave as he was thin ; 
When the war broke out he got right in, 
Unhitched his plow, put the mule away. 
An' then the old folks heard him say: 



Refrain 

Good-by, maw ! Good-by, paw ! 
Good-by, mule, with yer old hee-haw. 
I don't know what the war's about, 
But you bet, by gosh, I'll soon find out ! 
Good-by, sweetheart, don't you fear, 
I'll bring you a king fer a souvenir. 
I'll git you a Turk an' a kaiser too. 
An' that's about all one feller kin do. 



I think some of those fellows are not finding out 
what the war's about quite as quickly as they ex- 
pected to, and I believe that some time spent in 
vividly enlightening them on the life-and-death ne- 
cessity for the sacrifice they are making would not 
be wasted. 

I talked about the war to one long, lank, squint- 
eyed State-of-Mainer. " I guess them Germans is 
great fighters, ain't they ? " he said, squinting at some 
imaginary distant object. 



92 The Yanks are Coming! 

*' I guess they are." 

" They been drillin' an' trainin' 'round an' fightin' 
so long I guess they kindo got the jump on us, ain't 
they?" 

" I expect they have." 

The Yank looked at me quickly, furtively, and 
then away again at his fancied point of interest in 
the distance. " I guess that's so. Wa'al, they may 
be able to chaw us up an' swaller us, but I betcha 
when they git us down we'll set awful oneasy onto 
their stummicks ! " 

VI 
AT CAMP DEVENS 

Camp Devens is about as much like Camp Upton, 
say, as New York is like Boston, which is not at all. 
The men are from upper New York State, Con- 
necticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and New 
Hampshire. The camp is built on wooded rolling 
country. All pine trees on the reservation of a cer- 
tain thickness were left standing. I think there is 
not a piece of roadway in camp that runs straight for 



The Yanks are Coming! 93 

three hundred yards. Rolhng hills and scattered 
pine trees and winding roads, barracks built at vari- 
ous angles to suit the roll of the country — that is 
Camp Devens. It looks more like some kind of a 
very new park than anything else. It is as New 
Englandy as pie on a breakfast table! 

The camp of 1,140 buildings was completed in 
sixty-one working days. The barracks are heated 
by steam, and the steam heats. It was down to 34 
below while I was there, and the barracks were com- 
fortably warm. 

There are thirty-odd houses, Y. M. C. A. huts, 
hostess houses, clubs, etc., for the entertainment of 
the men in their off hours. 

I was present at the opening of one of the soldiers' 
clubhouses in Ayer, a mile and a half from the camp. 
Dr. Endicott Peabody, the head master of Groton 
School, some three miles distant, delivered the wel- 
coming address to the soldiers. He was polished 
and suave. He dropped frequently into Latin quo- 
tation, but withal he was elementally thunderous in 
his denunciation of the foe. 



94 The Yanks are Coming! 

As I sat listening I was persistently reminded of 
Faneuil Hall and of the men of another day. Dif- 
ferent men now in a newer hall, but the issue and 
the spirit are the same ! 

Most available cities made efforts to have canton- 
ments located near by. Ayer was different. Ayer 
is a nice, quiet little Massachusetts town of some 
three thousand people, that's been going sedately 
about its business for many years without the aid of 
a military camp. New England like, it didn't want 
to alter its custom. It didn't want to be bothered 
with some thirty-odd thousand soldiers sitting on 
its knee. 

I talked about it with the landlord of an' Ayer 
hotel. 

" We was afraid there'd be a lot of drunkenness 
and rowdyism," he explained. " Some of us had 
seen soldiers' camps, and we knew what they were. 
But this is all different. It we'd have known it was 
going to be like this, we wouldn't have said nothin' 
against havin' the camp here. Why, these fellows, 
they ain't really soldiers, as you might say; they're 



The Yanks are Coming! 95 

just our own folks all dressed up in the same kind 
of clothes." 

VII 
BELGIUM REPRODUCED IN NEW ENGLAND 

On New Year's Day I visited the Camp Devens 
trenches. They scar a square mile of typical New 
England woodland. They are most complete with 
dugouts, listening posts, machine-gun emplacements, 
and barbless barbed wire. In December, during be- 
low-zero weather, details of soldiers held the trenches 
under war conditions, attacked and defended. _ 

The ground about the trenches is littered with 
little burlap bags stuffed with sand that did duty as 
bombs in the semi-sham battles. I say semi ad- 
visedly because, barring lead and steel, the Yanks 
fought those practice battles with a savagery that 
approximated reality. 

New Year's Day was clear and cold. Late in the 
afternoon, after exploring the trench system, I came 
out in an open field near a modest New England 
farmhouse. The fields about that little house were 



96 The Yanks are Coming! 

all cut up with trenches. It was a faithful reproduc- 
tion of a scene in Belgium except for the fact that 
the farmhouse was undamaged. As I stood there 
on that trench-scarred field beside that peaceful New 
England farmhouse I saw Belgium ; I saw France ; I 
saw the shattered farm homes there surrounded by- 
trenches. I saw the people who had lived in those 
homes lying dead by the roadside. I saw great lines 
of them stumbling along in horrible flight from the 
invaders. 

The woman who had lived in that little house be- 
side which I stood had gone peacefully into Ayer 
to live there in comfort on the rent paid her by the 
Government until such time as the soldiers should be 
done messing around in her garden and hayfield. 
It was rather ridiculous, this faithful reproduction 
of stricken Belgium, on that quiet Massachusetts 
hillside. But there, in the cold sunset glow of that 
clear winter day, I had a sudden stirring revelation 
of the final reason why we people of the United 
States must cross the seas and fight upon the soil 
of Europe. 



The Yanks are Coming! 97 

VIII 
TO KEEP FRIGHTFULNESS OUT 

We must fight upon the soil of Europe to insure 
that New England hillside farm against the bloody 
actuality of the horror that came upon a like farm 
in Belgium. 

The Yanks up there are training in those practice 
trenches about that farmhouse, training so that no 
trench on any farm in the United States will ever be 
used for any purpose other than practice work. 

As we drove back toward camp we passed a sleigh 
piled high with household goods. A farmer was 
moving away temporarily while his land was used 
by the Government for the training of soldiers. 
There was no fear in the man's face. The horses 
were plodding along peacefully. There was no 
hurry. Shells were not falling near. 

We rode on into camp. Dances were being held 
in dozens of barracks. Gay parties of girls and 
boys went singing by on trucks. I walked down 
among the buildings to an infantry barrack that 



98 The Yanks are Coming! 

houses the men from Cape Cod and Martha's Vine- 
yard. 

Friends and relatives from Cape Cod were there 
on a visit, and they wtrt dancing on the upper floor. 
They were dancing to the tune of "Over There." 
A crowd of young people in one corner of the bar- 
rack were singing: 

The Yanks are coming, 
The Yanks are coining. . . . 

Yes, the Yanks are coming ! And as I stood there 
in the gathering dark of that New Year's Day I 
knew an added reason why. 



R^ARIN' TO GO! 

I 

THE BUSINESS OF FIGHTING 

The building vibrated to the roar from a thou- 
sand soldiers. " Stay with him, kid. You got him 
now. Hang on. Look out for his right." 

The building was a theater in the amusement zone 
at Camp Funston, the National Army cantonment in 
Kansas. The two professional welterweight fight- 
ers who were performing for the benefit of the sol- 
dier crowd slammed each other professionally 
through the last round and snarled protests when the 
referee called the bout a draw. With their handlers 
they passed through the crowd to their dressing 
rooms. 

When they had disappeared with their alibis and 
their handlers, there crawled into the ring a glower- 

99 



100 The Yanks are Coming! 

ing, bliie-chinneci heavyweight who looked Hke the 
logical result of a diet of raw meat and green bones. 
I was seated on a raised platform at the ring side 
with a number of civilians and officers. A local 
fight promoter was beside me. 

" Who's the assault-and-battery artist?" I asked 
him. 

" Tough boy," he assured me. " I've seen him 
make good men jump out of the ring." 

"Is he a soldier?" 

"No; he ain't been drafted yet. He's still 
fightin'." 

The proper retort was too obvious to be worth 
while making. 

"Who's he fighting?" 

" Don't know. The guy he was supposed to go 
on with didn't show up. I pity the bird who sub- 
stitutes." 

I heard a step in the crowd and looked around. 
A tall, dignified, partially bald banker was coming 
down the aisle toward the ring, with a dressing gown 
wrapped about him. He may not have been a 



R'arin' to Go! loi 



banker ; it is possible that he may have been a hard- 
ware merchant in a small town in the Middle West, 
or perhaps a lawyer or druggist — certainly an 
active church member and a man of well-ordered 
habits. He was a big enough chap, but he had the 
soft look of the busy professional man who has 
never been an athlete. 

The crowd laughed good-naturedly and applauded 
as the dignified, partially bald man climbed into the 
ring. The referee held up his hand. 

" This is K. B. Sims of Battery ," he an- 
nounced. " Mr. Sims has never fought before, but 
he's been taking lessons of the division boxing 
instructor, and he wants to get a little practice in 
real fighting. He doesn't expect to do anything 
more than get licked, but he's going to do the best 
he can. So don't ride him too hard if you think he 
isn't as good as he ought to be." 

The bell rang, and the two men shook hands and 
squared away. The fighter pranced a little, assured, 
grinning uglily. The soldier stood poised stiffly, 
hft hand extended just so, left foot forward in pre- 



102 The Yanks are Coming! 

cisely the right place, right arm poised ready to hit 
or guard. He looked like an advertisement for a 
book on " How to Be a Prize Fighter: in Ten Les- 
sons." I laughed hysterically in spite of myself. 
The tough boy led teasingly with his left. The sol- 
dier stepped in mechanically, according to Hoyle in 
his every movement, and snapped over a left cross 
counter. He not only snapped it over, but he landed 
with it, and a red stain spread over the tough boy's 
lips. I laughed till my cheeks ached. It was a 
great joke, this green, dignified amateur getting in a 
real blow on the tough professional. The tough boy 
lowered his head and tore in, showering blows at 
his opponent. 

"That's all," the fight promoter said. "He'll 
finish him now." 

The amateur met the charge calmly, with wrinkled 
brow. You could see his mentail processes written 
on his face as he strove to recall just what the box- 
ing instructer had told him to do in such a case. 
He hung on for a second, thinking heavily, then 
broke away and pulled a right uppercut against the 



R'arin' to Go! 



103 



professional's chin. The blow was delivered calmly, 
thoughtfully, in the tentative manner of one making 
a possible wrong move in a new game. The pro- 
fessional rocked back on his heels and stood sway- 
ing, groggy, his arms hanging limp at his sides. 
That calmly delivered uppercut must have had the 
drive of a mule's kick in it! 

We rose and shrieked to the amateur to tear in 
and finish his opponent. But the amateur stood 
waiting, stiffly posed, very earnest, and somewhat 
puzzled. It never occurred to him that he had hurt 
the man and that he could win the fight with a blow. 
He was lacking in any instinct of conquest to tell 
him that the moment had come to slam in and wipe 
his man out. Fighting was a new business that his 
Government had called upon him to learn. He was 
practicing according to instructions and, having gone 
as far as his teaching took him, knew nothing fur- 
ther to do but wait. 

While he waited, the tough boy recovered his wits, 
and the round ended. He let the professional re- 
cover again and again, and in the beginning of the 



104 '^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

sixth and last round the tough boy landed a hard 
swing to the jaw. The soldier swayed and crashed 
to the floor. He was groggy, but he remembered his 
instructions and followed them by rising unsteadily 
to one knee and remaining there to listen intently 
for the count of nine. Then he rose, and as he did 
so he smiled pleasantly and nodded to the fighter in 
a manner of a sportsmanlike tennis player, compli- 
menting an opponent on a well-played drive. The 
prize fighter saw his chance and swung. The sol- 
dier dropped to the floor again. He dropped, but 
he didn't stay down the proper nine seconds that 
time. He sprang to his feet immediately and he 
sprang with his hands up. For the first time he 
was mad. For the first time he went after the other 
man with the idea of abolishing him. 

The calm, thoughtful man of affairs earnestly ac- 
quiring knowledge of a new business was gone, and 
in his place there moved forward in that ring a hard- 
eyed fighting man with the impelling flame of fury 
alive In him — a fighting man working at his trade 
with full driving knowledge that he must destroy 



R'arin' to Go! 105 



the power of his antagonist or suffer the destruction 
of his own power. 

I have never seen fear more clearly written than 
on the face of that tough professional prize fighter. 
He ducked and side-stepped, hung on, backed up, 
and finally ran around the ring to escape the pur- 
suing fury that he had roused to action. The gong 
rang ending the round and the bout. The profes- 
sional gasped with relief; the soldier shrugged his 
shoulders regretfully and, dropping from the ring, 
strode up the aisle toward his dressing room. There 
was a certain truculence in the swing of his shoul- 
ders, the set of his head, that bespoke a fighting man. 

" Look at grandpa strut," I called to an army cor- 
respondent near me. " Walks like General I Am of 
the Wide, Wide World, doesn't he? " 

Suddenly I quit laughing. I had come from the 
East to see the Middle West in arms ; to see and tell 
of its attitude and progress in preparation for war. 
It was impressed upon me that there in that ring, 
individualized and revealed, I had seen the Great 
Middle West learning the business of fighting. 



Io6 The Yanks are Coming! 

There in that ring, individualized in the person of 
that tall, dignified, earnest soldier, I had witnessed 
the present military development, v^ar wind, and war 
necessity of the Middle West. Mr. Middle West 
is a big man physically with great potential hitting 
power, but he needs hardening. He is earnest, pros- 
perous, rather dignified and thoughtful. Mr. Mid- 
dle West is preeminently a peaceable citizen, a man 
of home and business. 

And now this peaceable citizen has been called to 
learn the business of fighting. He has been called 
upon to learn the rules of the most frightful war of 
all history. I have watched him getting his educa- 
tion in the business of killing. I have seen him 
rushing and lunging with his bayonet; I have seen 
him shooting in the range ; I have seen him hurling 
grenades on the bombing grounds. I want to say 
that that man in the ring was Mr, Middle West in 
the war, to the life ! Mr. Middle West has a healthy 
hatred of war. 

War presents an antithesis of every one of 
the Middle West ideals. Mr. Middle West's lik- 



R'arin' to Go! 107 

ing for war and its ways is approximately equiva- 
lent to a rheumatic old Louisiana negro's yearning 
for a home in the Arctic with the Eskimos. Feel- 
ing as he does, and finding it necessary nevertheless 
to engage in this hated business of war, Mr. Middle 
West is applying the same sincere, thorough effort 
in learning his new occupation that he has hitherto 
devoted to raising hogs and corn, building up a 
business or a home and establishing a family. He 
didn't know anything at all about this fighting game 
when he matriculated last fall as a freshman in the 
University of Destruction; and, realizing his abso- 
lute ignorance, he was keen to learn. 

Mr. Middle West has been a particularly apt 
student because, hating war as he does, he is the 
more anxious to become immediately so efficient 
that he can accomplish the task at hand and go 
back to the activities of his heart's desire to work 
in field and in shop, in factory and schoolroom, the 
life of business and the home. 



Io8 The Yanks are Coming! 

II 
A TYPICAL CAMP OF THE MIDDLE WEST 

Camp Funston, Kansas, and Camp Dodge, Iowa, 
are thoroughly illustrative of that which one ordi- 
narily means when speaking of the Middle West. 
There are three other national cantonments so situ- 
ated geographically in the Middle West; namely, 
Camp Grant, near Rockf ord, 111. ; Camp Custer, at 
Battle Creek, and Camp Sherman, at Chillicothe, 
Ohio. But Funston and Dodge, between them, are 
typical. The soldiers at Camp Funston are entitled 
to feel themselves nearer the physical heart of the 
nation than the men in any other training camp. 
The Ogden Monument, marking the geographic cen- 
ter of the United States, stands on the military reser- 
vation on which Camp Funston is built. 

At Funston are to be found National Army men 
from seven States: Missouri, South Dakota, Ne- 
braska, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Ari- 
zona. The camp was built to accommodate 41,000 
men. It is on the Fort Riley military reservation 



R'arin' to Go! 109 



at the confluence of the Republican and Kansas 
rivers. The reservation contains approximately 
20,000 acres. A military road connects the camp 
with Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri River, about 
twenty-five miles above Kansas City. The two 
nearest towns are Junction City to the westward 
and Manhattan on the east; each place about nine 
miles from camp and each a small town. An elec- 
tric line which runs directly through the camp con- 
nects with both places, as does the Union Pacific. 

Camp Funston, however, finds it necessary to pro- 
vide most of its own amusements. There is an 
amusement civilian zone in the heart of the camp, 
where are moving-picture theaters, pool halls, res- 
taurants, stores, and banks. There are fewer casual 
visitors and local welfare workers floating around 
loose at Camp Funston than in some of the canton- 
ments I have seen. 

The camp is named for General Frederick Fun- 
ston, who died at the border last year while the army 
was playing bandit-bandit-who's-got-the-bandit? in 
Mexico, and was under the command of Major Gen- 



1 10 The Yanks are Coming! 

eral Leonard Wood when I visited it. A small 
bungalow stands high above division headquarters 
on a bare hillside. From that bungalow Major 
General Wood last year watched the ripening of the 
late-born fruit of his efforts to get the country to 
prepare. General Wood was absent in France when 
I visited the cantonment, but his influence was very 
evidently present with the men of the division. 
From buck privates in the rear rank, all the way up 
the staff officers, almost every man with whom I 
spoke — literally almost without exception — vol- 
untarily made some laudatory reference to General 
Wood. He has surely captured the imagination and 
devotion of his men. 

Come with me on a clear, warm January day and 
climb the hill that flanks the camp on the north. 
Before us the great cantonment lies spread out on 
the lovely valley, visible in its entirety, and we get 
some hint of the vastness and complexity of the work 
of preparation going on there. Away off to the 
right are the stables and corrals of the remount sta- 
tion. Look carefully through your field glasses, 



R'arin' to Go! Ill 

and you will see there men of the National Army 
from New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado; men 
with bearskin chaps over their uniforms, wearing 
high-heeled boots and high-peaked sombreros. You 
see them over there on the river flats astraddle pitch- 
ing bronchos. You see them at work around the 
corrals with rope and bridle. You see there in that 
remount station some of the world's most expert 
horsemen training the animals for their service in 
France. It was not necessary to go outside the 
personnel of the National Army to get these men. 
They were selected by law and assigned to the work 
at which they were expert. 

The five-mile-long camp below us looks like a 
great manufacturing plant of some sort. Each 
regiment has its own heating plant, and the scores 
of tall chimneys belching forth black smoke add to 
the industrial appearance of the place. From away 
to our right we hear the crackle of rifle and machine- 
gun fire on the range, where the men of the Middle 
West are learning to shoot. Along the roads be- 
low and everywhere over the hills columns of men, 



112 The Yanks are Coming! 

indistinct and snakelike against the brown of the 
bare ground, are moving out for their daily hikes. 
Immediately below us some seven hundred men are 
at bayonet practice, thrusting, charging in formation, 
practicing with blob sticks, shouting savagely at com- 
mand as they lunge at the imaginary foe. They are 
the men of the division officers' training camp, men 
who were drafted from civil life only a few short 
months ago and are now in line for commissions. 
Only lo per cent, of the men in that training camp 
were taken from civil life direct; the others are all 
men who have demonstrated their fitness to try for 
commissions while serving in the ranks of the Na- 
tional Army. Immediately at our left on the hill- 
side a man of the Signal Corps is wigwagging mes- 
sages. A little to the left and behind him another 
member of the corps is taking a message from the 
neck of a panting dog which is being trained in main- 
taining communication at the front. A flock of 
pigeons fly past immediately over our heads. A lit- 
tle way up the hill, above the man with the dog, they 
wheel and flutter downward. A soldier hurries up 



R'arin' to Go! 113 



the hill and takes a message from the leg of one of 
the birds. They too are our allies in the war for 
liberty, and on the surety of their instinct and the 
speed of their wings the lives of American men may 
some day depend. 

On the far side of the parade ground in the valley 
below we see the great stretch of barracks housing 
the artillery. Through the streets and fire breaks 
the men are guiding long lines of mules and horses. 
Directly below us and a little to the left we see the 
building of the division school of fire. There the 
American officers of the division are avidly studying 
every complex problem of modern war under the in- 
struction of British and French officers who have 
gained their knowledge in active service. In study- 
ing the National Army camps I have always in mind : 
What action or sentiment evident here is going to 
insure the winning of this war? What action or 
sentiment may delay victory? The science of this 
war is a new science, and our officers must learn it. 
How do they take the teaching? At least 99 per 
cent, of all the officers I have met and talked with 



114 '^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

during nearly six months that I have been in touch 
with the National Army are directing their every 
energy to learning everything that they possibly can 
learn from their British and French instructors. 
Some few, pleasingly few — not more, perhaps, than 
ten all told — have been contemptuous of any knowl- 
edge that they might gain from an Englishman or a 
Frenchman and have blocked their own path to effi- 
ciency through jealousy. 

Just below us and farther to the left we see the 
barracks of the Quartermaster's Corps,- and away 
down there at the extreme left and across the valley 
the barracks of the old depot brigade which now 
houses the troops of the 92d Division. The flag 
that floats above the headquarters of that division 
is the same red, white, and blue under which all 
our armies operate, but the men who salute it there 
are black. The 92d is the first and only negro 
division in the United States. So far only the 
headquarters, with its attached units and trains — 
perhaps 3,000 men — are at Camp Funston. The 
remaining units are stationed in six other camps, 



R'arin' to Go! II5 

training separately, pending the assembling of the 
division. The commanding officers are white men, 
but most of the captains and Heutenants are colored 
men, graduates of the colored officers' training camp 
of last summer at Fort Des Moines, where about 700 
were given commissions. Like all other divisions, 
the 92d has its officers' training school, and the 
students are being instructed by colored officers, 
graduates first of the regular army and later of the 
school at Des Moines. 

I have said that from this hilltop the camp looks 
like a great manufacturing plant, and that is pre- 
cisely what it is. It is a great factory wherein the 
raw civilian material of the Middle West is being 
made into American soldiers. Already thousands 
upon thousands of soldiers have gone from that 
camp. A number of thousands have gone to fill up 
various National Guard organizations that were be- 
low war strength. Other thousands of specialists 
have been drawn for special work — firemen and 
engineers, sewing-machine experts, clerks, auditors, 
stenographers, carpenters, blacksmiths, etc. — and 



Il6 The Yanks are Coming! 

assigned to the practice of their various occupations. 

It is a very fine thing that all these trade specialists 
are at hand in our National Army ready to be picked 
from their organizations on call and sent wherever 
they may be needed in the United States or France. 
It is all very fine, but — 

The most precious thing that is being produced 
in that great manufacturing plant there on the Kan- 
sas prairie is spirit. We have the brain and the 
brawn to be the deciding factor in this war. We 
also have in the army the precious will to win : will- 
ingness to sacrifice — spirit — the compelling moral 
power that must ever sustain us if we are to go 
through united to a peace that will not be a disaster. 
The National Army has that spirit to a remarkable 
degree. And it has not been carefully fostered. 

Here's the point: Company officers get some- 
thing approaching their full complement of men and 
start out full of pep and enthusiasm to make their 
outfit the best disciplined, snappiest, most carefully 
trained organization in the division. They all take 
a prospector's interest in searching the ranks for 



R'arin' to Go! 117 



available iioncom material wherewith to make their 
permanent corporals and sergeants. And when they 
have found the right men they are as proud of them 
as a first-time dad with healthy triplets to his credit. 
Go into the orderly room for an interview, and you 
will hear something like this : 

"If you want to see a real outfit, you just stick 
around and watch us for a while." This from the 
captain : " We've got the best company on the 
reservation. I'm not taking any particular credit to 
myself. I just happen to have the best lot of men 
in the whole outfit. For example, my top sergeant. 
He had fifteen thousand a year for handling a big 
construction job. He's been bossing big gangs of 
men for years, and he takes to this work like a bird 
to the air." 

One lieutenant tells you what a wonderful mess 
sergeant they have. Another pipes up with a story 
illustrating how rapidly the men in that particular 
company learn. Go out in the squad room, and you 
will find the same spirit of pride in the organization 
among the men. The company is just at the top of 



Il8 The Yanks are Coming! 

its stride wiien along comes a requisition for fifty 
men from the organization to go toward the filling 
up of a National Guard unit perhaps. Then the top 
sergeant of whom the captain brags is taken for some 
special construction work abroad. This, that, and 
the other noncommissioned officer and private are 
taken from the skilled tradesmen, numbering among 
the best men in the organization, are picked for spe- 
cial service according to their occupation, and sent 
away a few at a time. Visit that same orderly room, 
say four or five months from the time the company 
was first organized, in September last. You find 
the captain blue and tired. 

" We had one of the best outfits in the division," 
he tells you regretfully. " Wish you could have seen 
it when we were at our best. 'Course there's no use 
your sticking around now; we're all shot to pieces. 
They've bled us of all our best men. They've got 
all my noncoms and so many carpenters and black- 
smiths and chauffeurs, and the Lord knows what all, 
that we've got only the skeleton of an organization 
left. Now we'll have to take new men to fill up the 



R'arin' to Go! II9 

company and go through the training all over again. 
W' hat's the use of breaking your heart to build up an 
organization only to have them tear it to pieces ! " 

" Think this division'll ever go to France ! " the 
lieutenant asked dolefully. 

You tell him you're sure of it. The lieutenant 
shakes his head sadly. " I wish I thought it," he 
sighs. " I figure they're going to ship out some 
more of this outfit to fill up other organizations 
abroad, and that w^e're going to be stuck here in the 
mud to train the next draft. It was a shame they 
had to go and bust up this company. Gee ! I wish 
you could have seen us when we were pretty near 
full strength. We had a crackajack outfit. I wish 
I could 'a' gone to the front with that bunch. But 
it's all off now. They sure broke us wide open." 

Come into the squad room. There formerly 
you'd find a hundred men; you now find a dozen. 
A private of your acquaintance calls you aside. 
" Say, mister, have you got any dope on whether 
this division's goin' to France or not? " 

You give him the same assurance you gave the 



120 The Yanks are Coming! 

lieutenant, and meet with the same sorrowful skep- 
ticism. "This company's shot all to pieces. Gee! 
I wish I could get transferred. There'll be a lot o' 
new men comin' in here to fill this up, an' we'll have 
to go out and grind through all the old foot drills to 
train them. Believe me, I'm sick o' this outfit. I 
wish I could hook on with some unit goin' over." 

And there you are ! 

Another thing: I was talking along these lines 
to a regular army officer of high rank at Camp 
Funston. " Mr. McNutt, this war is going to be 
won by the man with the bomb and the bayonet," 
he said emphatically. " Our fighting man should be 
and must be our best man. Of course we must have 
our engineers and trade specialists of all sorts for 
work behind the lines, but the man who will win or 
lose for us is the fighting man in the front-line trench. 
And this system of picking the trade specialist out 
of the company after several months of training is 
making the fighting man, who ought to be the proud- 
est soldier of the army, feel like a discard. One by 
one the chauffeurs, plumbers, carpenters, and artists 



R'arin' to Go! 121 

with whom he has been drilHng are taken away for 
special service. What does the man who is left 
think? He thinks this: 'I'm the goat. I'm not 
fit for anything except to fight. I'm not a plumber 
nor a carpenter nor a locomotive engineer; and be- 
cause I can't drive nails nor shoe horses, I have to 
use the rifle and the bayonet.' That's wrong. The 
men who do the fighting should be the best men of 
the army, and they should feel — must feel — that 
they are the cream of the army, not the scum. All 
the work that is done by the artisans behind the 
front-line trenches is simply preparation for the 
crucial work that the fighting man must do. And 
that fighting man must be our best man. He must 
know that he is our best man. The people at home 
must know that he is our best man and be proud of 
him as such. He must have pride in himself and 
confidence. The present working of the so-called 
selective system, taking artisans from our fighting 
organizations, after months of drill, for special 
service and for other units, is humbling the fighting 
man's pride and undermining his confidence in him- 



122 The Yanks are Coming! 

self. He feels that he is the left-over, and not the 
chosen one. Skilled artisans, needed for special 
service, should be picked direct from the exemption 
board and never sent here to camp to drill with the 
infantry or artillery." 

Ill 

PSYCHOLOGY — IN A SWAGGER STICK 

I am given to understand that in the future selec- 
tive increments will be differently handled. I hope 
so. It may be that military necessity demanded 
the method used with the first selective army. It is 
my hope and belief that in the future each incoming 
recruit will be immediately investigated and those 
specially qualified and needed for special work 
abroad will be transferred at once and not stolen 
later from among the trained fighting men who have 
mastered the hard lessons in the carefully organized 
division units to the hurt of the morale of both offi- 
cers and men. Anything is of value that adds in any 
way to the pride of a fighting man. General Leon- 
ard Wood, commanding Camp Funston, is well aware 



R'arin' to Go! 123 



of that fact. He issued an order requiring all the 
officers of the division to wear chin straps and at all 
times to carry canes or riding crops. He also en- 
couraged the men in the ranks to carry swagger 
sticks when they were away from the reservation on 
pass or furlough. The psychological effect is excel- 
lent. War is not peace, and a soldier is not a civil- 
ian. Anything is good which at this time hastens 
the translation of the civilian into a soldier and 
changes the atmosphere about him from that of peace 
to that of war. The carrying of the sticks gives the 
men a certain bearing. A soldier carrying a swag- 
ger stick does not easily slouch or sag. The carry- 
ing of the stick is announcement of the assumption 
of a certain position, and the soldier feels that he 
must carry himself up to it. It helps. The cour- 
ageous specialist in any dangerous line of activity 
proclaims himself by some picturesque individuality 
of attire. The plowman plods his weary way home- 
ward in a dirt-colored, shapeless outfit ; but the cow- 
boy — the specialist — comes lamming in, wearing 
high-heeled boots, a gaudy handkerchief nattily 



124 ^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

knotted about his throat, a sombrero, and chaps. 
It is startHng, however, to see there at Camp Fun- 
ston the transformation in the men of the Middle 
West where a year ago a wrist watch was a crime 
and a cane something approximately equivalent to a 
prison record. It is startling and encouraging, be- 
cause quick adaptability to the radically altered 
standards that war has set up is a character asset to 
be valued. 

IV 

THE TRAINING OF MEN 

Eleven miles north of Des Moines, Iowa, is Camp 
Dodge. It was built to house 45,000 men, drawing 
its personnel from Iowa, North Dakota, Minnesota, 
and a middle belt of Illinois. The camp lies on both 
sides of the Des Moines River and occupies about 
3,500 acres. The camp cost the Government $5,- 
970,000. Last summer corn, Iowa's greatest crop, 
was growing where the camp now stands. The 
whole site was a cornfield. The first work of the 
laborers was to cut down the grain. There is some- 



R'arin' to Go! I25 

thing moving and significant, something terribly 
typical of the effect of war, in the destruction of that 
growing crop to make way for the training of 
men. 

An electric road, several bus lines, and innumer- 
able jitneys connect the camp with Des Moines, the 
capital of the State and a city of more than 100,000. 
There is a great deal of civilian welfare work done 
in the camp. One organization of between three 
and four hundred women, known as the Camp 
Mothers, visit the camp daily and do personal work 
in the barracks. 

In Des Moines there is the Army Club ; run under 
the auspices of the local War Recreation Board in 
connection with the Fosdick Commission at Wash- 
ington, where dances are held three nights each week, 
partners being provided for the soldiers by patriotic 
women's clubs of the city. An item in the " Camp 
Dodger," the cantonment paper, informs the wide 
v/orld that at a certain dance there were so many 
more girls than soldiers that the situation was em- 
barrassing, and asks a better turnout of men next 



126 The Yanks are Coming! 

time. Certainly no soldier at Camp Dodge is given 
any spare time to himself in which to brood. Some 
few of the men are unkind enough to declare that 
they are not given any spare time in which to do 
anything. There is much acrimonious discussion 
as to the value of the civilian social welfare work. 
It seems to me to be an excellent work, somewhat 
overdone in the case of Camp Dodge. 

There is a regiment at Camp Dodge that prob- 
ably has a larger percentage of farmers than any 
other regiment in the United States army. It is the 
352d Infantry. Nearly all the men in that regiment 
are from farms in Minnesota and North Dakota, a 
section where the farmers are supposed to have been 
very lukewarm in their support of the war. Up to a 
period in January that regiment had had no court- 
martial proceedings. In recognition of its record 
it was cited in orders from Washington, and Colonel 
Hawkins, commanding, was publicly complimented 
by Secretary Baker. The spirit of these men is 
worth careful nursing, not only for the good they'll 
do on the firing line, but for the missionary work 



R'arin' to Go! 127 



they will do at home. One old German farmer 
in the Middle Northwest was very skeptical 
about the potential military power of the United 
States. 

" I don't stand up for der Kaiser," he was wont 
to say, " but I know dat he iss got a great army an' 
it iss a useless vaste of human life dat ve got into it, 
because der Kaiser he vin anyhow." 

The old German farmer's boy was among those 
selected, and sent to Camp Dodge. The old man 
was pessimistic. " It iss no goot he shoult go," he 
declared. " Vot's der use ? Ve can't lick der 
Kaiser." 

After a few weeks the boy came home on a short 
leave. When his son had returned to camp the old 
man came downtown singing a new tune that ran 
something like this : 

" Did you see dot boy o' mine? Ain'd he a fine 
looker in his uniform? You bet he's a soldier, an' 
here iss tousands schust like him in her army. Yes ! 
You bet ve got a great army ! Ve show dot Kaiser 
vot for, eh ? You bet ! " 



128 The Yanks are Coming! 

V 
GROWING STALE 

The Mr. Middle West who is in the army is a 
splendid missionary of patriotism. But, again but — 

They'll have to send Mr. Middle West to France 
pretty quick if they want him to go with the best 
spirit. Mr. Middle West is growing stale in train- 
ing. He's an earnest, intelligent fellow, and he's 
learned about all he's going to learn in a training 
camp in this country. He was willing to quit his 
civilian job to fight in France; but he's not keen on 
remaining away from that job to train any longer 
in America. Mr. Middle West wants to do one of 
two things : He wants to fight or go home. He's 
not unwilling to lay down his life. He is willing to 
go over the top, but he's not keen on going round 
and round and round in an endless grind of training. 

A company officer at Camp Dodge told me of the 
splendid spirit the men of his company had shown 
the first four months of their training. 

" Then all of a sudden the pep seemed to go out 



R'arin' to Go! 129 



of the whole outfit," he said. " During the first 
month of training, I'd have sworn that bunch of 
mine, properly trained and equipped, would lick 
anything two-legged and stay in a scrap down to the 
last man. They were hogs for work, full of pep and 
ginger. Then all of a sudden they went bad on me. 
They weren't open and rebellious, or anything like 
that, but they were sore and sullen and lifeless. I 
got so I hated to pass a man, because when he'd 
salute me he'd do it in a mean, sore way. I began 
to think that I either had a bunch of dogs that 
couldn't keep their tails up after the first few miles 
or that I was a bad captain and they'd found it out. 
But, sir, about a week ago the whole outfit turned out 
as bright as a dollar's worth of new dimes. They 
buckled into drills as enthusiastically as a lean pup 
with a fat piece of meat. They're singing in the 
barracks and on their hikes, and everything's lovely. 
I'd like to know what happened, because if they 
ever go bad on me again I want to make sure that 
the happening is repeated." 

A few days later that officer came to see me. 



130 The Yanks are Coming! 

" I found out what brought my outfit back to 
life," he said abruptly. " My sergeant got what he 
thought was an authoritative tip that we were going 
to France within a few weeks, and he spread it. 
That's what bucked 'em up! I guess that's a bad 
outfit ! I guess I'm going to worry over a bunch 
that can feel that good just because they think 
they're going to be in the fighting soon. I guess 
not ! Why, man, there isn't a thing in the world the 
matter with that outfit o' mine, except that they're 
just r'arin' to go! " 

That officer had Mr. Middle West right. He's 
wild to get into the fighting; not because he likes 
war, but for the good and sufficient reason that he 
hates it. He hates war and all its ways so bitterly 
that he wants to go where he's going, do what's got 
to be done, and get to whatever the end of the mat- 
ter may be for him, as quickly as possible. Fighting 
is not Mr: Middle West's business, and because it is 
so alien to his training and instincts he wants to get 
it done as thoroughly and quickly as possible. He's 
r'arin' to go ! 



HOW DOES THE FAR WEST 
STACK UP? 

I 
THE BIGGEST CANTONMENT 

Draw a line north and south through the geo- 
graphic middle of the United States, up through 
Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and on to the Canadian 
border. Directly on or east of that line there are 
fifteen National Army camps. West of that line 
there is one National Army camp, and one only — 
Camp Lewis, the great cantonment at American 
Lake, Wash., about i,8oo miles distant from its 
nearest military neighbor, Camp Funston. 

There in that great cantonment, far on the yon 
side of the Rockies, beyond the desert wastes and the 
Cascade snows ; there in the brilliant wet green of a 
Puget Sound prairie, the men of the entire West are 
learning war. The men training at Camp Lewis 

131 



132 The Yanks are Coming! 

come from Washington, Alaska, Oregon, CaHfor- 
nia, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. 
Some of them traveled 2,000 miles from their homes 
to camp. 

There in that National Army camp one finds every 
remaining human element of that which gave magic 
to the pen of Bret Harte and the brush of Frederic 
Remington — the cowboys from all that's left of the 
storied range; prospectors and miners drawn clear 
from the Arizona deserts to the Arctic snows of 
northern Alaska; timber cruisers and loggers, river 
drivers and construction workers; hard-rock men 
and a powerful leaven of world wanderers, adven- 
ture lovers, from the four corners of the globe, to 
whom the West has ever been a magnet. 

The men at Camp Lewis have no near-by military 
neighbor wherewith to measure themselves. They 
want to know how they stack up with the other 
divisions. Everybody remotely connected with the 
division asked me that question: privates and offi- 
cers, correspondents and civilians at work about the 
reservation, the janitor at Division Headquarters, 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 133 

the newsboys and the bootblacks, business men in 
near-by cities, and just people whose names and 
occupations I don't know. Their desire for knowl- 
edge of how the division at Camp Lewis compared 
with others was as unanimous as Belgian opinion of 
the Kaiser. The men out there from one-third of 
the entire territory of the United States want to 
know how they stack up with the other divisions, 
and the people of the remaining two-thirds of the 
United States want to know the same thing. 

Let us first consider the geographic equipment of 
the Far West in training for the fight. Western 
and superlative are practically synonymous terms. 
The West has the biggest apples and the high- 
est mountains, the swiftest rivers, the most 
valuable town lots, the coldest places and the 
hottest. 

In keeping with Western tradition, Camp Lewis 
is the biggest cantonment in the United States. It 
took more lumber, nails, electric wiring, water pipe, 
energy, character, tar paper, oratory, window sash- 
ing, and printer's ink to construct it than went into 



134 '^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

the building of any other cantonment. It is built 
to accommodate 50,000 men. 

You see? Superlative! Can't be dodged. The 
reservation encompasses something like 102 square 
miles of territory. It offers a greater variety of ter- 
rain for training purposes than any other camp in 
the country. It has a huge parade and drill ground, 
as flat as a billiard table ; it has rolling prairie and 
dense forest, mountains and rivers, salt-water inlets 
and fresh-water lakes. The magnificent camp site 
was a gift to the Government by the people of Pierce 
County. The county voted a bond issue of $2,000,- 
000 to buy the site and turned it over to the Gov- 
ernment gratis. 

Camp Lewis is the healthiest cantonment in the 
United States. The figures show it. The death 
rate in Puget Sound cities is always exceptionally 
low. Seattle, at various times, has had the lowest 
death rate of any city in the country. The death 
rate at Puget Sound ports has always been close to 
the minimum. With more than 30,000 men in 
camp, the division medical report for the week end- 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 135 

ing February 16, 19 18, contained the following sig- 
nificant statement : " There have been no deaths 
during the last two weeks." The latest report from 
the surgeon general's office shows Camp Lewis below 
the average of all camps for admission for disease 
to the hospital and the noneffective rate. And there 
is another point. The Washington climate is best 
suited for the training of American soldiers for 
work in France because it most closely approximates 
the prevailing weather conditions of the western 
front. 

It rained on the day of a division review. A cow- 
boy sitting hunched up on his horse in the down- 
pour, watching the marchers pass, said sadly : " I 
knew it was goin' to rain to-day. The sun set in the 
west last night. That's a sure sign in this country." 

II 

THAT SNAPPY, SMART SALUTE! 

Of course you don't expect to find a very strict 
observance of discipline in a division made up of 



136 The Yanks are Coming! 

men from the Far West. That is, you don't expect 
to find them saluting quite as smartly, standing as 
stiffly at attention, or making as frequent a use of 
a ceremonial " Sir," in addressing an officer, as the 
men of some of the other divisions. You don't ex- 
pect to find the men of the Far West excelling in all 
those niceties of military courtesy; but that is pre- 
cisely what you do find. I found a more general 
and marked observance of all forms of military 
courtesy at Camp Lewis than at any other canton- 
ment I have visited. Not only that, but I found 
the cowboys out in the Remount Depot rendering a 
salute more smartly and standing more stiffly at at- 
tention in the presence of an officer than the men of 
any other unit in the division. Out there in that 
great Remount Station, covering over 500 acres, 
and capable of accommodating 15,000 horses, where 
chaps and spurs are working togs instead of curiosi- 
ties, and the shrill cry of " Ride him, cowboy ! 
Stay with him ! " is familiar, I saw men time after 
time exceed the demand of regulations in rendering a 
salute. I went over the depot with the commanding 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 137 

officer, Captain Jackson, a ranch owner of Willis- 
ton, N. Dak. Cowboy soldiers passing us at a 
tangent on horseback, much farther distant than 
thirty paces, would twist in their saddles as they went 
by, watching the captain eagerly; and if it so hap- 
pened that they caught his eye, they would snap off 
a salute smart enough to win praise from a Prussian 
drillmaster. 

Ill 

PLAYIN' THE GAME RIGHT 

Some years ago I was busy picking up a few of 
the most honest dollars I ever earned, doing long- 
shore work at a mining port in southeastern Alaska. 
Working with me at that time was a slim, blond, 
blue-eyed young hellion, whom for purposes of iden- 
tification I shall call Jim Jones. Jim was originally 
from the Michigan timber country, but he had spent 
most of his young life adventuring up and down the 
Pacific Coast, working at everything from faro to 
longshoring, tending bar to hard-rock work, and 
riding the range to halibut fishing. He was one of 



138 The Yanks are Coming! 

the most actively pugnacious human beings I had 
ever seen. He was easy to start and hard to stop. 
I used to put in most of my spare time trying to 
convince Jim that no casus belH existed. It was a 
hopeless job. Jim believed himself to be just as 
good as anybody else, and he insisted on other peo- 
ple sharing his opinion. He was always on the 
lookout for those who might doubt his status and 
ever ready to argue them around to his way of 
thinking. Jim's idea of argument was not oratory. 
No ! He believed in converting a man to his view- 
point, and the only method he understood was the 
evangelism of feet and fist. 

The last week I was in Alaska, I was long-shor- 
ing a freighter with Jim. Her winches were dis- 
abled, and the men aboard were passing lumber 
over the side to us on the dock. The mate of the 
freighter, a big, red-mustached Irishman, decided 
that we were not packing it away fast enough ; and, 
storming down to the rail, he proceeded to give a 
peppered imitation in the manner and tone of Wil- 
liam J. Bryan speaking of booze. He had just 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 139 

stopped to get his breath for a fresh bellow when 
Jim walked briskly back down the dock, stopped at 
the ship's side and, looking up at the rail, drawled 
out : " Say, young fellow, who you talking to ? 
Me, or some o' the hired help around the place? " 

The mate said something that mates often say. 
I heard a yip, and saw a thin streak of activity dis- 
appearing over the ship's rail. The streak was Jim, 
going to work at his chosen profession of proving 
that he was just as good as anybody else, and a little 
shade better. He had to work fast because the sec- 
ond mate and the captain and some of the crew came 
to the mate's assistance. Jim was no hog. He 
liked a lot of trouble, but enough was plenty. 
When reenforcements arrived, he let loose of what 
was left of the mate, vaulted over the rail, grinning 
happily, and together we took it on the run, fol- 
lowed by remarks from the captain and such stray 
ship gear as he was able to lay hands on and heave. 

" I didn't have much time," Jim said regretfully 
when we stopped for breath in the timber above the 
beach, " but I bet I taught him a part o' the alphabet. 



140 The Yanks are Coming! 

I bet he won't figure he's better'n the next man that 
happens to be buckin' lumber on some dock where 
his ol' seagoin' fryin' pan's tied up. I wasn't with 
him long, but I bet I taught him not to think he's 
a better man'n I am just because he's got himself 
a salt-water job and a blue coat with brass buttons 
on it, like an elevator boy. Let's you an' me get 
our time an' go to town." 

We got our pay and went to town. A few days 
later I " came below," and Jim was only a remem- 
brance. 

Recently I was standing in regimental headquar- 
ters at Camp Lewis, when Sergeant Jim Jones of 
the National Army came in with a message for a 
captain. 

He didn't see me. He saluted and came to heel 
before the captain as rigidly as any Prussian goose- 
stepper. He monotoned his message in the third 
person, saluted again, snapped around on his heel 
as smartly as a whiplash, and went out. I followed 
and called to him and we had a reunion in the lee of 
a company barrack. 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 141 

"Whatever you doin' now, bo?" he asked me. 
" What's the C on your arm stand for? " 

" Correspondent," I told him. 

" Oh, you're writin' us up, are you? " he grinned. 
" ' Soldier boys make merry at Camp Lewis,' and all 
such like." 

" I'm surprised to hear you speak up in meetin' 
an' try to josh anybody, Jim," I kidded him. 
" When I saw you steppin' around up there at head- 
quarters, stiff as a little ramrod, I figured they had 
you too well tamed to try to kid anybody." 

The minute I had said it I was sorry. His 
face went tired and stern, and he drew a long 
breath. 

" They ain't nobody got me tamed out none, bo," 
he said very gravely, squinting into the distance. 
" Not me ! I never did hate nothin' in all my born 
days as bad as I hate this thing o' steppin' high 
when somebody says ' Hep ! ' an' whippin' my arm 
up to my forehead every time I see a gold hat cord 
with anything alive beneath it, an' sayin' ' Sir ' to 
many a guy that I wouldn't stop on the street to slap 



142 The Yanks are Coming! 

if we was both civilians ; but we ain't both civihans 
now, bo; we're both soldiers. Get me? An' all 
this salutin' an' other stuff is a part o' the soldier 
game; see? An' because I hate it all so damned 
bad, I want to play it well so it'll be over sooner. 
Do you get me ? Them Germans have got the jump 
on us, 'cause all that stuff comes natural to 'em. It 
don't come natural to me, bo, and never will. But 

as long as I have to learn it to help lick the 

Germans that started this mess, you bet I'm goin' to 
learn it well. I ain't goin' to pass up any bets that 
may help out ; see ? Nobod}^ ever put anything over 
on me before I came into the army, and there ain't 
nobody ever put anything over on me since. I don't 
salute these officers because they're better men than 
I am; they ain't. I salute 'em because salutin' is a 
part of this military game, an' 's long as I got to 
play it, I'm goin' to play it right." 

There, as I understand it, spoke the voice of the 
Far West. The Far West doesn't like the military 
business; it doesn't like discipline; but it is willing 
to play the game according to the rules clear down 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 143 

to the last ceremonial bat of an eyelash, in order to 
win the war. 

While we're on the subject of military discipline, 
as it worked out in its application to the freedom- 
loving men of the Far West, let me explain the 
necessity for the absolute social division between 
officers and men in the American army. I find so 
many good Americans who think that the insistence 
on that division is snobbish, that it is the result of 
an attempt to place the officer on a pedestal and the 
man in the pit. Not at all ! That absolute division 
must exist in the American army for the protection 
of the American soldiers. Suppose the captain of 
a company let down the bars and associated with 
some of his men socially, in town, at dinners or 
balls, or wherever it might be. He couldn't asso- 
ciate with them all. If he were a college man, he 
would naturally associate with the college men in 
his company. What would the rest of the men 
think about it ? They'd think : " Why, we've got 
a fat chance of getting to be noncoms with this out- 
tit. Why, we saw the captain eating dinner down 



144 ^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

at this or that hotel last night with Private So-and- 
So and Private Such-and-Such. What chance have 
we got with them ? " 

And, quite frankly, what chance would they have 
with them? If a captain associates socially with 
some of his men off duty, the probabilities all are 
that that captain would be influenced to a certain 
extent in favor of those men, his social friends. 
Even though he be absolutely unswayed by senti- 
ment, the other men of his company, the men with 
whom he does not associate socially — he can't as- 
sociate with them all — will feel that they are being 
unjustly treated and that they haven't got a fair 
chance. And when they begin to feel that, the 
fighting value of the company is on the wane. Just 
remember that, Mr. Democratic American. Re- 
member that that division between officer and man 
in the American army is absolutely necessary to in- 
sure a maximum of justice to the American sol- 
dier. 

And you, whoever you be, who are worrying 
about the possibility that men may be bloodthirsty 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 145 

after this war as the result of their experience, re- 
member this : The effect thus far of military- 
training on the average American has been in 
many cases an absolute reversal of expectation. 
I refer you to the excellent discipline among 
the men of the Far West as an example of 
this. 

I give you another instance — I don't attempt 
to explain it or draw from it a moral. I simply 
mention it: Picturesque profanity has always 
been a characteristic quality of the average men 
of the West. In Western lumber camp and 
mill, in mine and on railroad grade, I have heard 
profanity so skillfully expressed that it ceased to 
be a string of oaths and became an outpouring of 
Art. I had been at Camp Lewis among the men of 
the entire West for nearly two weeks when it came 
upon me with a shock that in all that time I had 
not heard a soldier, officer, or man utter an oath. 
I'm not mentioning the abstinence from profanity 
as a virtue. I simply mention the fact. It's a re- 
versal of expectation. Think it over. 



146 The Yanks are Coming! 

iV 
DOING THEIR DUTY 

The men of the Far West are training not only 
with the idea of doing their duty. They're keen on 
doing some damage. A nosey civihan, poking 
around camp last fall, got into conversation with a 
big Oregonian logger. 

" And are you willing to die for your country, 
my man? " he inquired. 

" I am not ! " the big logger declared emphati- 
cally. " I want to make some German die for his." 

At Camp Lewis one finds Captain Resher W. 
Thornbery, a world wanderer and adventure hunter. 
Captain Thornbery taught jiujitsu to the Japanese 
police. He studied the art for several years under 
the greatest masters in Japan, and was graduated 
as the master of them all, thereafter being engaged 
as an instructor by the Japanese authorities. You 
will find him in an open park in the fir forest on 
the hill, busily teaching all he knows to the men of 
the Far West for use at close quarters in the Ger- 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 147 

man trenches. At Camp Lewis you will find Lieu- 
tenant Allen Duncan, a graduate of Oxford and the 
Saint-Cyr Military Academy in France, who hasn't 
missed a war for the last fifteen years. He got the 
V. C. for gallantry at Mafeking. You'll find him 
out in the forest teaching the men of the Far West 
all he knows of scouting and field skirmishing. 
These three are typical of the men the West attracts. 
Clothes may not make the man, but a uniform 
often gives opportunity for the manifestation of 
manhood. There are many Asiatics in service at 
Camp Lewis. One, a Chinaman, was made ser- 
geant because he deserved the place. Shortly after 
he got his stripes he was put in charge of a detail 
of recruits just up from California, with orders to 
have them dig trenches at a certain spot. He 
marched them to the spot where the trenches were 
to be dug; whereupon they sneered at him and lay 
down under the trees to smoke. They had no mind 
to work under the direction of a Chinaman. The 
sergeant stood very quiet for a little time; then he 
stepped over to the recalcitrant group and spoke in 



148 The Yanks are Coming! 

a voice that had an edge to it. " Nature made me 
a Chinaman," he said firmly, " but the captain made 
me a sergeant. You can disHke me because I am a 
Chinaman, but you'll obey me because I am a ser- 
geant in the American army. Now you dig! " 

It is a matter of record that they dug. 

In the early days of the camp they were in des- 
perate need of blacksmiths to shoe mules. They 
searched the various units for men that could do 
the work. A company captain called in a man he 
thought might qualify, and asked him about it. 

" You know something about mules, don't you? " 
the captain asked him. 

" Plenty," the soldier assured him solemnly. " I 
know a guy that enlisted to shoe mules. He died 
'fore ever he got to the front. He passed away in 
what you call — now — a rear-guard action." 

V 

SCOUT WORK 

As I said at the start, the camp offers a peculiarly 
fortunate variety for training grounds. It has roll- 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 149 

ing, open prairie; it has prairie dotted with ever- 
greens; it has thick forest and steep hillside. It 
has hundreds of little parks absolutely walled in by- 
fir and hemlock trees, where special details can be 
specially trained in private. 

The instructors are taking full advantage of the 
natural resources offered. I was walking one after- 
noon through the fir and hemlock forest on the hill 
that flanks the camp on the south. It is a weird 
and mysterious wood. I could hear no sound ex- 
cept the demanding clamor of artillery on the far 
range and the syncopated squabbling of a ma- 
chine gun not so far distant. I looked down a 
wooded hollow at my right and broke out into a 
rash of gooseflesh. There stood a bare-headed, 
blindfolded soldier — evidently awaiting execu- 
tion ! 

" Teaching him to detect the direction from 
which sounds come," the ofiicer with me explained. 
" Watch ! " 

I took a long breath of relief and watched. The 
blindfolded figure was surrounded by soldiers stand- 



150 The Yanks are Coming! 

ing motionless at regular distances from him. At 
the sign of command from the directing officer, one 
of the soldiers would move toward the blindfolded 
man, stepping with infinite care in the attempt to 
creep up unheard. He would keep on going until 
the man he was approaching raised his arm and 
pointed in the direction from which he believed a 
sound could have come. There was no levity about 
that work. Those men were in grim and deadly- 
earnest creeping over the moss and brush, in the 
weird light that leaks through the ragged roof of 
an evergreen forest. 

I passed on. The officer and myself were silent. 
There was an atmosphere in that deep forest that 
forbade speech. A scratching noise high in a 
near-by hemlock tree startled me. I looked up 
quickly and saw the olive drab of a soldier's uni- 
form tucked in among the upper branches. Before 
I had time to ask an explanation of the officer with 
me, three soldiers burst out of the forest near by, 
crouched over with their guns held ready for busi- 
ness, hurrying, peering intently, through the wood. 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 151 

One of them looked aloft, spotted the man in the 
tree, and all three stopped. 

" All right ! " said one. " We got you." 

The man up the tree began to descend. An offi- 
cer appeared and engaged the three soldiers in 
earnest conversation. " Scout work," the officer 
accompanying me explained. " Great opportunity 
for that stuff here." 

A little farther along a large number of soldiers 
passed me in open formation. As far as we could 
see through the forest in each direction we could 
make out the forms of silent, hurrying men. An 
officer appeared. "What's the idea, Al?" my es- 
cort asked. 

" We're the rear guard of a battalion in full re- 
treat," the officer explained, " falling back from the 
Nesqually River. Some hike! I could eat raw 
crow right now and swear it was quail. Boy! If 
Hoover knew what I'm goin' to do to food to-night, 
he'd have me shot for the good of the service." 

We walked that dim wood throughout the entire 
afternoon, and on an average of every five minutes 



152 The Yanks are Coming! 

came upon an example of some new phase of train- 
ing, and for every phase of training the reservation 
offered some pecuharly favorable physical advan- 
tage. 

VI 

THE S. 0. S. 

On a misty morning, squatted behind a front-line 
trench starting across No Man's Land, pitted with 
shell holes and strewn with all manner of equipment 
and refuse, we looked at the enemy trench and wire 
a hundred yards distant. The trenches and the in- 
tervening terrain built under the direction of British 
officers in a green, mossy glade, absolutely walled in 
by firs and hemlocks, presented a faithful reproduc- 
tion of an active bit on the western front. There 
were perhaps thirty of us in the party. Soldiers, 
noncoms, privates, and two lieutenants were stu- 
dents in what is known as the S. O. S. — the scout- 
ing, observation, and sniping end of the army-in- 
telligence game. A hundred yards away five men 
of a reconnoitering party were crowded in a shell 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 153 

hole. They had but just wormed their way under 
the protecting wire of their own — the enemy — 
trench, and sHd rapidly to shelter in the first refuge 
that offered. 

They were operating in almost impenetrable dark- 
ness, and yet we who watched stood in the full light 
of early morning. A trick of training is the ex- 
planation. Each man of each patrol wore goggles 
with a glass so darkened by a special treatment that 
they literally turned day into night for him. The 
student scout operates in almost total darkness; the 
instructor stands in the light of day, watching his 
every move to criticize him. 

Four men and a lieutenant eased themselves 
gently over the top of the trench directly before us, 
squirmed under and through the seeming confusion 
of guarding wire, and went groping out into the 
billowy desolation of No Man's Land, inching along 
on their stomachs at the rate of less than a foot a 
minute, feeling carefully of every can and stick and 
stump, memorizing every little bump and hollow 
with their exploring fingers. They were out to 



154 ^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

break up any reconnoitering party that might be 
around, to see that no enemy fingers explored the 
secrets of their wire, and — if possible — bring in 
an enemy scout alive to be questioned. 

One of the enemy on the far side of No Man's 
Land lifted his head from out the shell hole experi- 
mentally. From an advanced and v^onder fully 
camouflaged listening post, a sniper's rifle whanged 
its announcement of discovery. The sergeant near 
me swore under his breath. " He poked his head 
up out of there too fast," he muttered. " I stalked 
a flock of mountain sheep all one day up in Alaska, 
and then I lost a chance for a shot at 'em by pokin' 
my head over the top of a rock real quick. If I'd 
eased it up slow just a fraction of an inch at a time, 
they'd never have noticed me, I'm sure. It's always 
a mistake to move fast until you know that you're 
seen." 

" You're right," another sergeant whispered, 
" but when you know that you've been seen, bo, 
don't let any tired streaks of lingering lightning, or 
sound waves that scare wolves, or anything like 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 155 

that, get in your path. You want to be free to show 
speed." 

" Ain't it the truth ! " a private whispered ferv- 
ently. " If I was out there and knowed I'd been 
seen, I bet I could start ten seconds behind a ninety- 
mile gale o' wind and be in plumb calm weather in 
about fourteen steps." 

"If we started together, I'd have to look around 
to see what was keepin' you," another declared. 
" With that reason for runnin' I could start at sun- 
down, an' 'fore ever the folks that saw me leave 
could say ' There he goes ! ' it'd be more than dawn 
where I'd be. Full 'fore daylight. I'm tellin' 
you ! " 

The group chuckled. " Shut up ! " the sergeant 
growled. " Watch these guys and learn some- 
thing." 

The reconnoitering party from the enemy trench 
reached our wire and worked along it, examining it 
with their fingers, conversing with one another by 
means of pinchings, looking, in their goggles and 
blackened faces, very much like terrible creatures 



156 The Yanks are Coming! 

common to the world's oozy youth suddenly become 
reincarnate in the common-sense daylight of the 
workaday present. 

There was a break in that wire, and one man of 
the reconnoitering party found it. He was a tall, 
lathy fellow with a tousled shock of yellow hair. 
I made a note of him. 

The enemy party worked along our wire until 
they were almost on the edge of the shell hole which 
hid two of our patrol party. The lieutenant com- 
manding our detail had inched himself out from 
behind a tree and with one of his men was worming 
himself along the ground to get into a position to 
cut off the enemy. 

VII 

KNOWING MORE THAN THE HUN 

The leader of the enemy patrol poked his head 
over the edge of the shell hole that concealed two 
of our men, and I could see his body stiffen. Very 
slowly he drew back, a fraction of an inch at a time. 
He reached out and pinched the man next to him. 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 157 

Our lieutenant rose, crouching like a football 
tackier, and whistled shrilly. Every man of both 
patrols rose abruptly. Two of our men jumped 
from the shell hole and bore down two of the enemy. 
Three of the enemy patrol were left. Two of them 
hesitated just for a second to get their bearings, and 
then ran for their trench. Both were tackled and 
thrown. One of the enemy patrol was gone. He 
was the lathy, light-haired fellow who found the 
break in the wire. Instantly on the sound of that 
alarm signal he had leaped to his feet, and the first 
leap had taken him toward home. When his com- 
rades were being tackled, he was halfway across 
that No Man's Land, stepping it off like a ten-sec- 
ond man on a cinder track, and heading for the open 
lane in his own wire as straight as a well-aimed 
bullet for a bull's-eye! He couldn't see his way. 
I know. I put on his glasses later, and it was dark- 
est night to me. He had come a circuitous route, 
this way and that, around shell holes and through 
them ; but when it came time to go home he went 
without any fatal instant of hesitation. While his 



1^8 The Yanks are Coming! 

comrades were still struggling, he arrived at the 
break in his wire, ran through it, and rolled into his 
own trench. He had noted and memorized every 
twist and turn that he had made in that trip across, 
calculated the length of each movement, and con- 
stantly kept his bearings so that he could leap to 
his feet and run in exactly the right direction to 
reach home. He did reach home. Remember 
that. 

The British instructor blew his whistle, and the 
show was over. 

" It's all a matter of knowing more than the Hun 
knows," the British instructor said, in explaining 
the work to me. " You see, if you know more 
than the Hun knows, you live; and if you don't, 
why, the Hun lives. It's our business to see that 
the Hun doesn't live, isn't it? Yes. So we 
must be very sure to learn more than he knows. 
And then we must be very, very careful. 
Yes.'* 

" How do these fellows here pick it up? " 

" * Pick it up ' ? " the British instructor exclaimed. 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? 159 

" My dear fellow, they don't have to ' pick it up.' 
They carry it around with them. It isn't necessary 
to teach these fellows this work; you have only to 
tell them. Why, look at these chaps here. They've 
all had outdoor experience hunting, logging, some- 
thing of the sort. Why, they're just made to order 
for this sort of thing, you know. You notice that 
chap who made straight for home when they tried 
to nab him? Most remarkable piece of work! 
Comes perfectly natural to him. He's been what 
you call a timber cruiser. He's trained to observe 
and remember what he sees. He's not alone. 
Plenty here like him." 

He was silent for a moment, thoughtfully study- 
ing the soldiers at work about him. 

" Indeed yes," he went on. " All these fellows 
need is one little taste of actual warfare, and they'll 
be wonders. If they'd let me have my pick of 
two hundred and fifty men from this division, and 
let me go on my own with them, just here and 
there along the western front, I promise you I'd 
have no cause to seek a separate peace." 



l6o The Yanks are Coming! 

VIII 
"WE CAN LICK 'EM" 

Civilization has not yet disassociated the men of 
the West from experience with and knowledge of 
romantic action. This war has brought a romance 
of action back into the world — a greater romance 
than we have ever before known. Our grin- 
ning aviators contemptuously straddle the storm 
and tickle the tail of the angry blast with their 
whirling propellers. They sit the gale with in- 
solent ease, ride it screaming past the startled 
upper clouds into the frontier of space, shatter 
the serenity of heaven with the crashing rattle of 
their fighting guns. Thousands upon thousands 
of men are nightly creeping Indianlike in the 
muddy mystery on No Man's Land. They play 
their wits and brawn individually against an in- 
dividual foe, and, as the British instructor has 
it: "If they know more than the Hun knows, 
they live." 

On my last day at Camp Lewis I stood watching 



How Does the Far West Stack Up? i6l 

the division pass in review. '' Some bunch ! " said 
a near-by civiHan admiringly. 

" Fine body of men," another civilian agreed 
sadly. " It's a shame to think they must go to their 
death, isn't it? Just to think that all those thou- 
sands of men out there are no more than a breakfast 
for the guns in the battle on the western front ! " 

A big soldier stepped up, voicing his protest in an 
inarticulate growl of anger: "If that bunch out 
there does any dyin', they'll take a plenty o' com- 
pany along with 'em," he snarled. " You want to 
lay off o' that talk around here, you ! We're gettin' 
plenty good an' sick o' you calamity howlers that 
seem to think that we're nothin' but a lot o' boobs 
being sent over for the Germans to play with. 
They ain't no Germans goin' to play with this out- 
fit, an' go home to tell their grandchildren they en- 
joyed bein' with us. We don't thank you to figure 
that we're a set-up for the Germans to knock over. 
Get that idea out o' your head. We're goin' to do 
somethin' in France besides die." 

That soldier was not boasting. He was stating 



l62 The Yanks are Coming 1 

what he knew to be a fact. We have had too much 
of the feeHng that the American soldier is some 
kind of a helpless sacrifice to the mighty German. 

As I write this, before me stands the meager 
report of the death of the first West Pointer in 
action on the western front. According to the ac- 
count, his last words, uttered just before he was 
killed by a bursting shell, were : " Steady, boys ! 
Though they outnumber us ten to one, we can lick 
'em." 

I have but just returned from a stay with the men 
of the Far West in training at Camp Lewis. And, 
in all honesty, after the exercise of whatever intel- 
ligence I may possess in arriving at a conclusion, 
I want to let that officer's reported statement stand 
as an echo of my idea. 



LET 'ER BUCK! 



THE AMERICAN COWBOY 

A CHARGING column of frightened horses broke 
down a section of fence and came plunging across 
the road toward the ranch house. With the fore- 
man of the ranch, I stepped up on to the porch for 
safety and watched the runaway band go thunder- 
ing by. Snorting and neighing, they scrambled up 
the steep hill back of the house and disappeared in 
the dense woods. Two cowboys, wearing som- 
breros, chaps, high-heeled boots, and with brilliant- 
colored handkerchiefs knotted about their necks, 
hurried from behind the stable across the way and 
made for the horses. 

" Watch these fellows ride," the ranch foreman 
said to me. " They're a couple of our top hands.*' 

Watching those two cowboys ride was easy on 
163 



164 The Yanks are Coming! 

the eyes. They swung into their saddles with the 
ease of ordinary men sitting down to breakfast in 
an accustomed chair, and went rocketing away after 
the runaway animals. One of them took a narrow 
winding trail up the hillside through the brush. I 
found my admiration about evenly divided between 
rider and horse. The horse scrambled and twisted 
up that narrow, rough trail as sure-footed as a cat; 
and the cowboy stayed with him as secure in his seat 
as a hungry flea at bedrock on a woolly dog's back. 

" Top hands," the ranch foreman said proudly. 
" And mighty fine fellows. You won't find a 
cleaner pair of gentlemen anywhere! " 

What the ranch foreman said was quite true, but 
he was not a ranch foreman, and the cowboys were 
not cowboys, and the ranch was not a ranch. The 
ranch was a part of the great Remount Depot of 
Camp Lewis, the National Army cantonment at 
American Lake, Wash. ; the foreman was the officer 
commanding the Remount, and the cowboys were 
soldiers in the service of the United States. 

The Remount Depot at a cantonment is simply 



Let 'Er Buck! 165 



the horse camp where the animals called for service 
are received and trained for their military duties. 

II 
REGULAR ROOKIES 

At the Remount the incoming horses are greeted 
with the equine equivalent of the " shot in the arm " 
that welcomes the rookie into camp; only, instead 
of getting the needle for protection against small- 
pox et al., Dobbin gets his little squirt of goozelum 
to insure him against glanders. When our friend, 
the horse, arrives in camp, he is immediately exam- 
ined and assigned to one of a number of detention 
corrals, according to the state of his health. If he 
has a particularly bad case of the blues, or a sniffly 
nose, or any of the forms of pazootski that afflict 
a horse, he gets a trip to the hospital. It's a real 
hospital with smells and operating tables and doc- 
tors all dressed up in white clothes, with knives and 
serious expressions. I watched one poor gee-gee 
get cut apart and sewed together again for appendi- 



l66 The Yanks are Coming! 

citis, or grand larceny, or whatever it was that ailed 
him. The doctors kidded him on to the operating 
table. The table, operated by machinery, was stood 
up on edge to make the horse believe it was a nice, 
ordinary barn wall and good to lean on. When the 
poor nag leaned on it, they locked him to the camou- 
flage wall with straps around his legs and neck, and 
then turned the table top back to a horizontal posi- 
tion again. Of course the nag went with the table, 
and there he was, all laid out on his side for burial 
or convalescence, whichever he might be fit for when 
the vets got through trying out their knives on him. 
A horse can't talk like a human being, but he can 
groan and whine like one. I stood at that poor 
nag's head while they worked on him, and all I had 
to do was to shut my eyes to believe that a man in 
pain was lying at my side. And the great shudder- 
ing sigh of relief when they had finished with him 
and let him up ! He was a little shy on articulation, 
that horse, but he was a regular four-legged War- 
field when it came to expression. He couldn't say 
anything, but you knew what he meant all right ! 



Let 'Er Buck! 167 



III 

THE FIRST BATTLE 

But the broncs and all the rest of the gee-gees 
are in the hands of their friends at Camp Lewis. 
The camp draws from all the range country of the 
West, with the exception of Arizona, New Mexico, 
and Colorado, whose men report at Camp Funston, 
Kansas, or Camp Travis, Texas. There are accom- 
modations for fifteen thousand horses and mules at 
Camp Lewis. The muster rolls of some of the 
companies sound like a list of the champion riders 
and ropers of the West. A mean bronc that's never 
been ridden and doesn't ever intend to be is out of 
luck at Camp Lewis. He goes into one of the six 
bull pens stepping high and haughty, snorting in- 
formation to the wide world that no bow-legged, 
cow-punching imitation of an animated pretzel in 
boots and spurs is going to fork him and live to die 
in bed! A solemn-looking cowboy goes into the 
pen with him. The bull pen is like a paper drink- 
ing cup in shape. It is thirty feet in diameter; it 



l68 The Yanks are Coming! 

has board walls set at such an outward angle that 
there is little danger of the rider's legs being crushed 
during the battle, for a battle it is. Those circular 
board walls are about eighteen or twenty feet high, 
and there are hoof marks mighty close to the top 
of some of them. The cowboy and the bronc stay 
in the pen alone for the length of time determined 
by the orneriness of the bronc ; but when they come 
out Mr. Horse is stepping meek and low and gin- 
gerly, like a deacon in a foreign chicken yard, and 
if a man had advertised him for sale as being fit 
for women and children to play with, he could not 
be sued for making a false statement ! 

It is a vital work these men of the rope and saddle 
are doing, the work of taming and training thou- 
sands of horses for the officers and the artillery, and 
mules for transport. Captain Jackson, command- 
ing at the Remount, explained to me how important 
the work is. He is a ranch owner from Willision, 
North Dakota, who volunteered for service the day 
after war was declared. 

*' It takes a long time and a lot of money to make 



Let 'Er Buck! 169 



a good officer — a colonel, we'll say — but one twist 
of an ornery bronc's back may put him out of busi- 
ness. We can't afford to have any officers put out 
of business just now; we need 'em too bad. It's 
our business out here to see to it that the officers' 
mounts are trained so's they don't 'tend to any of 
Berlin's business. We always advise an officer to 
let us pick his mount for him, and if he does, we 
guarantee to give him a horse that'll behave. So 
far as I know, there hasn't been an officer thrown 
in this camp yet. That's a record to be proud of, 
isn't it?" 

A few days later I met Captain Jackson, sitting 
on his horse in a downpour of rain, watching a 
division review. He was accompanied by Sergeant 
Richardson, who sold his ranch to be free to enlist, 
and who handled over sixty thousand horses for the 
Allies before we even thought enough about the pos- 
sibility of getting in to inquire the temperature of 
the water. 

They were watching the riders in the review and 
their mounts, recognizing and commenting on this 



lyo The Yanks are Coming! 

and that individual, and recalling incidents in the 
training of many of the horses that passed. They 
were jubilant over the fact that no animal misbe- 
haved. The captain called my attention to an extra- 
fine rope hanging from the sergeant's saddle. 

" Be worth something if I had the Kaiser at the 
end of it," the sergeant growled. " If I had him 
there, I'd show him the length of this parade 
ground." 

IV 

AT THE REMOUNT DEPOT 

At the Remount there is a school for horseshoers 
and also a school for packers. The head professor 
and all-round high-micky-doodle of the packer's 
school is Jim Keneely. Jim is neither an enlisted 
man nor an officer. He has no rank. All he has is 
more practical knowledge of packs and packing than 
any other man living. He taught packing to the 
army in Cuba, in the Philippines, and in China. In 
China his packing was a revelation to the officers of 
the other armies, and he was much sought after as 



Let 'Er Buckl 171 

a teacher in foreign parts; but Jim stuck with his 
own, and it's no mean advantage to us that he's 
with us now. 

The cowboys' social hall at the Remount boasts 
an original by Charlie Russell, the cowboy artist of 
Montana. It is Russell's gift to his pals of the 
range in khaki. The walls are covered with color- 
print reproductions of other paintings by Russell, 
stirring scenes of camp and trail. According to the 
men of the range, Edwin Abbey was an architect's 
draftsman in comparison with Russell, and, meas- 
ured by the same standard, John Sargent is seen to 
be a fair man for drawing cloak and suit ads. 

Most of the cowboys came into Camp Lewis in 
the draft and were transferred to the Remount De- 
pot after having done some training service in the 
infantry. They couldn't all be transferred immedi- 
ately, of course, and those who were obliged to drill 
afoot for a time were in a hard way. Saturday 
afternoons, instead of going to town, they'd come 
up to the Remount, perch on the tops of the corral 
fences, and watch the horses with the expression 



172 The Yanks are Coming! 

of a mad tenor making love. You see, a cowboy 
is not built for purposes of pedestrianism. Years 
of riding get his legs properly squeegeed to fit the 
curves of a horse's back ; but the slant is wrong for 
walking. During the unfortunate moments of his 
life when it is necessary for him to walk, he teeters 
precariously around in boots with heels high enough 
to satisfy a Broadway flapper on parade. The re- 
sult is that in his maturity, while he has more legs 
and feet than a whale, they're not of much more 
use to him if you peel him away from a horse and 
call upon him to circulate around on his own. 

So a cowboy in the infantry has this in common 
with a fish in the Sahara Desert : he's manifestly out 
of place. 

They drilled around in flat-heeled shoes for a few 
days, and the first free hour they got they stam- 
peded for the Remount and begged Captain Jackson 
for transfer to the Remount Depot. 

" Cap'n, I'd rather be shot at sunrise than walk 
on these feet o' mine another day," one temporarily 
dismounted unfortunate declared tearfully. " If I 



Let 'Er Buck! 173 

knowed they'd shoot me sittin', I'd do something to 
deserve it ; but I'm afraid they'd make me stand up ; 
an' it's too much for my brain to think of, standin' 
on my feet an' gettin' shot at the same time. They 
gimme shoes 'thout no heels to 'em, that set a man 
back on his spine so's that every time you step your 
backbone rattles like a boxful o' loose dice, an' then 
they make me w^alk. That's all. Just walk. Not 
goin' no place; just walkin' ! Cap'n, there ain't any 
place as fur away as I've walked in the last week. 
No, sir. I walked my legs off clean down to the 
knees, an' I'm workin' on the thigh bones now. I'm 
willin' to die for my country, captain, but I just 
naturally can't walk for it. Please, you get me 
transferred up here where I can pour myself into a 
saddle an' live human again! " 

V 

FIT AND HAPPY 

However, most of the blown-in-the-glass cowboys 
are soon assigned to the special service for which 



174 '^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

they are fit, and for which they are very urgently 
needed. And when they get where they belong 
they're a happy lot. They are with their own, and 
to a large extent on their own. I visited the Re- 
mount at Camp Funston in search of pictures. 
Within a few minutes there was a little private 
Wild West show in progress. Bands of horsemen 
were dashing here and there, performing all manner 
of tricks, a dozen ropes were circling in the air, one 
man 'was keeping two loops going at once, and the 
fence top was lined with a cheering, jeering crowd. 
The cowboy is working hard for the army, but 
he's busy at the work he understands and happy in 
it. And when a fieldpiece goes bumbling by in the 
clatterous wake of a sturdy, well-trained line of 
obedient horses, you know that the work of the 
American cowboy has counted. 



V- 



K>-?:^ 












MAKING SOLDIERS IN DIXIE 



COMRADES — ALL 

An ugly splattering of sound from a snarling ma- 
chine gun woke the valley with menacing echoes. 
A Virginia descendant of a Confederate soldier lay 
on the ground with his finger on the trigger. Near 
by stood a Pennsylvania descendant of a Union sol- 
dier watching the action admiringly. The earth 
under them had given final asylum to the soldier 
ancestor of each. The Virginian eased the pressure 
of his finger. A British officer stepped forward 
and spoke sharply in instruction. The Virginian 
and the Pennsylvanian — both of whose remote an- 
cestors had, so to speak, collaborated on the job of 
seeing that the Englishman's ancestors didn't hang 
around to wear out their welcome — listened in- 

175 



176 The Yanks are Coming! 

tently. Behind them, ringed about in formation, 
scores more of Northerners and Southerners bent 
their heads forward to catch the Englishman's 
words. The officer's speech was interrupted by a 
savage smash of noise from a hill in the near dis- 
tance. I saw, outlined clearly against the sky line, 
a French officer instructing men of the North and 
South in the art of grenade throwing: a French of- 
ficer whose ancestors may well have aided the men 
of the Revolution — North and South — in their 
battle against the English on that very ground. 
The sound of the bombing ceased and the English 
officer went on with his talk. Men of the North 
and sons of the South, under the instruction of a 
British officer aided by a Frenchman, and rehearsing 
their warfare on the ground that saw the final re- 
sistance of Lee against Grant; on ground in seeing 
distance of the Appomattox Courthouse ! 

It was Camp Lee, the National Army cantonment 
just outside of Petersburg. Camp Lee is not alto- 
gether typical of the South, but it is typical of 
America. 



Making Soldiers in Dixie I'jy 

II 
INSIDE THE HORSESHOE 

Camp Lee is the second largest cantonment. 
Most of its personnel is from western Pennsyl- 
vania, although it houses the selected men from 
West Virginia and Virginia. The camp is built in 
the shape of a horseshoe, with the drill grounds, 
bayonet courses, gas schools, and bombing grounds 
on ground inclosed by the barracks. One may 
stand near Division Headquarters at Camp Lee and 
see more men doing more different things than at 
any other camp. From one point of vantage I was 
able to watch several infantry battalions drilling, 
details at bayonet practice, machine-gun crews under 
instructions, bombing squads at work, men around 
the gas house learning to don masks properly, and 
others working at trench construction. 

On a windy hill near the gas house I met a cap- 
tain whose business it is to teach noncommissioned 
officers all the methods of defense against gas. All 
about us were details of men practicing the adjust- 



jjS The Yanks are Coming! 

ment of masks. A number of men were just com- 
ing out of the gas house near by, laughing and 
joking at their first experience with the noxious, 
invisible enemy. " How was it, Joe ? " asked a ser- 
geant. 

" Like Limburger cheese, only not so thick," the 
soldier replied. 

" Wait till you get a whiff of it ! A Bermuda 
onion will smell like a rose to you for a week after- 
ward." 

The captain laughed. " The Heinies will have to 
dig up somethig more schreckllch than gas if they 
want to scare this outfit," he said. " Men aren't 
afraid of a thing they make jokes about. They say 
the noncoms are the backbone of an army. If 
that's true, we've got some vertebras. I was lectur- 
ing to a class of fifty noncoms, and I found out later 
that thirty-three of them had had more chemistry 
than I'd had. After I had finished my talk I invited 
them to ask me questions, and they put me in a hole. 
I'd have been in an awful fix if it hadn't been for 
the fact that the fellow who was my orderly then 



Making Soldiers in Dixie ing 

was a former professor of chemistry at Yale. Be- 
tween us we got by." 

The 159th Brigade at Camp Lee has in its en- 
Hsted personnel probably the purest American blood 
of any camp in the country. Most of the men in 
the brigade are Virginians who trace their lineage 
back to colonial days. Major Granville Fortescue 
was telling me of the men of this brigade. " You 
know if an Englishman were to read over the local- 
ization order for this brigade, he'd think it a call to 
his home soldiers," he said. " We've men from 
Middlesex, Surry, and Kent here in one company; 
in another Westmoreland, Northumberland, and 
Northampton, and in other battalions are soldiers 
from the counties of Lancaster, York, Warwick, 
Bedford, Richmond, Sussex, Southampton, and Isle 
of Wight. Company roll calls down here sound 
like a lesson in English history — Buckingham, 
Brunswick, Cumberland, Bath, Halifax. Litera- 
ture is well represented too. One company has a 
squad composed of Addison, Arnold, Johnson, and 
Meredith." 



l8o The Yanks are Coming! 

The Division Headquarters at Camp Lee is within 
a stone's throw of the spot where the house stood 
that housed Grant and his staff during the siege of 
Petersburg. Last fall there was a Confederate re- 
union at Petersburg, and the old soldiers visited the 
cantonment. The man who had served as General 
Lee's cook during the siege was there; and in that 
camp, so appropriately named for the great military 
leader of the South, he met the grandson of the 
famous general, an officer in the American army, 
training Americans to fight for America. 

Ill 

SOUTHERN SPIRIT 

At Camp Jackson, South Carolina, we find the 
unalloyed South in training. The men at Camp 
Jackson are drawn from North and South Carolina, 
Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, and Ala- 
bama. This camp is located near Columbia, the 
State capital, in the pine woods on the highest bit 
of ground between the coast and the mountains. 



Making Soldiers in Dixie i8l 

The soil is sandy, and because the water drains from 
it so quickly, it offers splendid opportunity for 
drilling. 

The men of the South are excellent physical ma- 
terial. They are, on the whole, strong men; but 
they need athletic work to loosen and speed them 
up. Camp Jackson is fortunate in having Frank M. 
Dobson, former Princeton athlete and National 
League ball player, as a camp physical director, 
working in conjunction with the divisional athletic 
director, James Driver. Dobson is the best known 
college athletic coach in the South; over three hun- 
dred of the officers at Camp Jackson have played 
on college teams either under or against him. With 
Driver he has planned and carried out an athletic 
program of track and field events that has embraced 
all the men in the camp. It has long been his the- 
ory that athletics should be run to benefit the men 
of a college rather than merely to insure victory for 
a college team; now his theories are peculiarly ap- 
plicable. 

I wish there were some way in which I might 



1 82 The Yanks are Coming! 

do full justice to the reserve officers of the National 
Army in the South. I can't. History will. Prac- 
tically all of them are from the training camp at 
Fort Oglethorpe. Most of them are Southern col- 
lege men, and they are a snappy, peppery lot. They 
believe in themselves, they believe in the National 
Army, and above all they believe in their men. 
There is a phrase which always made me smile: 
" the flower of the South." I heard it used in ref- 
erence to the reserve officers of the South, and I 
didn't smile. It's not trite nor funny to me now. 
Those reserve officers have a hard job. They are 
doing it well and cheerfully, and finding the patience 
to be courteous not only to superiors and visitors, 
but to their men as well. 

" I put in a good deal of time explaining to my 
men the principles for which we are fighting," a 
reserve captain of infantry — a college man — told 
me. " I get excellent results. I believe that the 
Southerner is peculiarly susceptible to the appeal of 
principle. My men don't understand all the forces 
that operated to bring about this war. That knowl- 



Making Soldiers in Dixie 183 

edge is not necessary. They are coming to under- 
stand that the United States is absolutely right in 
its position, and, believe me, Mr. McNutt, these men 
of mine will fight like madmen for anything that 
they believe to be right." 

Most of the selected men in camp at Jackson are 
from remote farms and small towns. Those who 
took newspapers were interested in local news. 
They are, for the most part, men who have been 
accustomed to glance briefly at the headlines an- 
nouncing the death of thousands in some great bat- 
tle on the western front, and for their reading turn 
to the story about how Jim Hawkins fell from a 
scaffolding while painting his house and broke his 
arm. They know Jim; they did not know Europe. 
They knew that there was a war going on in Europe, 
but it was as remote from their minds as a native 
squabble in India or a fracas between black tribes 
in darkest Africa. There was much less argument 
about the Great War in idle moments than over the 
question as to whether Ty Cobb would outbat 
Speaker. 



184 The Yanks are Coming! 

Many of them went to the cantonment unwill- 
ingly; but paste this where you can see it: The 
selected man of the South would go to France to- 
morrow if given his free choice between crossing 
the sea to fight and going home before the fight is 
finished. 

" There's a wonderful spirit in this army, sir," a 
typical selected men at Camp Jackson told me ear- 
nestly, " I'm mighty proud to be in along with 
men like I know in this army. I reckon they all 
feel most the same as I do : This job's got to be 
'tended to, an' we are the people who've got to do 
it! 'Tain't a nice job, but it's our job, an' we're 
goin' to see to it." 

" You're not sorry, then, that you're here in the 
army?" 

" Turn me loose an' I'd enlist to-morrow," he 
said. 

" Then why didn't you volunteer in the first 
place?" 

" 'Cause I didn't think we had any business in the 
war, an' I didn't think the army needed me, whether 



Making Soldiers in Dixie 185 

we were right or not. I had me a little store, sir, 

down in , Tennessee. I'm just married an' my 

business just beginnin' to get goin' good. I got me 
a little home, sir, an' what time I ain't downtown 
'tendin' to my business, I'm home doin' some chore 
round the yard or putterin' round the house some- 
way, fixin' up some shelf or 'nother for the missus. 
We're right happy, sir, me an' the missus. We're 
just happy with each other an' gettin' on about our 
business. I ain't got much time for readin' in the 
newspapers. I read a little 'bout the war, but I 
don't give a damn. Then, sir, all of a sudden, we're 
into it. I been goin' on 'bout my business like I 
said, an' it seems to me like we're awful foolish to 
go an' get mixed up. But I didn't pay no 'tention 
even then, till 'long come Mr. Draft an' grab me. 
Well, sir, I reckon I just most went crazy! I think 
they ain't got no right to bust up my business an' 
take me 'way from my home an' all. No, sir! I 
try to get exemption an' everything, but 'tain't no 
mite o' good; an' down here I come! I was right 
mad about it for a spell, an' then I begun thinkin' 



l86 The Yanks are Coming! 

about it, an' hearin' my captain an' lieutenants talk 
about what we had to do an' why we had to do it. 
Then there's some men in the barracks that had 
more time for readin' an' studyin' 'bout the war 
than me, an' they're tellin' me 'bout it, an' how we 
come to get in on it. I find out we got a job to do 
that's got to be done. I ain't no slacker, sir. No, 
sir! My daddy, he fought along with the Confed- 
erate army, an' you bet if he were livin' to-day an' 
young enough he'd be fightin' in this army ; an' you 
bet I'm glad I'm fightin' in this army. I'm where 
I belong, an' I'm glad of it. Mister, I don't even 
want to go home till we get this job finished an' 
done with ; an' after I wrote the missus, an' told her 
how 'bout it, she don't want me to come back till I 
git through with what's to do neither." 

IV 

« I'M DONE TALKING AGAINST NIGGERS " 

In writing of the National Army of the South, I 
must not omit the negro soldiers. 



Making Soldiers in Dixie 187 

There was one unit at Camp Lee composed of 
1,600 colored soldiers, selected from West Virginia. 
Ten days after they arrived in camp with the first 
quota last fall, the call came for them to go imme- 
diately to France for special service. The call was 
sudden and unexpected. General Cronkhite knew 
that the men had not expected to leave this country 
for several months. He thought that perhaps some 
of the 1,600 might have good reasons for not want- 
ing to leave at once, so he called for volunteers from 
the 5,000 other colored troops who were in camp 
to fill up whatever vacancies there might be in the 
oversea unit. Every one of the 5,000 volunteered 
for immediate oversea service. Then the unit was 
marched to a hall. The general said that there were 
volunteers to take the place of any who wished to 
remain behind. Only 20 per cent, of the 1,600 
availed themselves of the opportunity to stay at 
home. When the general came from the stage on 
his way out those newly drafted colored men, facing 
active service in the war zone within less than two 
weeks after having broken their civilian ties, started 



1 88 The Yanks are Coming! 

to sing " America." As the general went down the 
aisle the singing grew to a harmonious roar of af- 
firmation. The thing was absolutely spontaneous. 
They had not been coached. It was a spontaneous 
expression of sentiment in the face of danger. 

Will you say that they had no full realization of 
the danger to be faced? Then come with me to 
Camp Jackson. I heard there a battalion of negro 
soldiers singing under the leadership of David Grif- 
fin, the division singing instructor. They were 
drawn up in formation before a barrack, singing 
with that abandon and joy that only the negro can 
attain. It seemed indeed that the thought of the 
war must be very light on their minds. 

Come with me to an officers' mess hall the next 
day. There is a shout outside : " Hey ! Look 
what's coming ! " We step outside. Down the 
road, thump-thump, thump-thump, comes that same 
battalion of negro soldiers in full marching order. 
These soldiers from the mills and cotton fields are 
on their way to France. The whole camp knows it ; 
the whole camp is grave, quiet. Thump-thump, 



Making Soldiers in Dixie 189 

thump-thump ! There is no sound in all that great 
cantonment save the beat of marching feet and the 
creaking of packs. The black men know they are 
on their way abroad. They are a solemn-looking 
lot. A minister steps out to the edge of the em- 
bankment overlooking the road down which the 
troops are marching, and calls out shakily: 
" Good-by, boys. God bless you ! God take care 
of you, boys ! " 

There is an uprolling of eyes and a shaky chorus 
of voices in answer : " Thanky, suh. Thanky 
kindly. Thanky, parson. Thanky, suh ! " 

A big Mississippian, standing near, swore growl- 
ingly under his breath, gulped, and cried. 

" I'm done talking against niggers," he declared 
huskily. " Those boys have been damn fine soldiers 
here, an' 'if they ever get back from France, I'm 
big enough to lick any man who don't give 'em a 
s.'juare deal." 

" They've certainly been good soldiers," a South 
Carolinian standing by, agreed. " I never thought 
to salute a nigger, but I've been glad to return 



190 The Yanks are Coming! 

salutes to those boys. If they die in France, they're 
going to be just as dead as any of the rest of us. 
I been changing my mind awful fast in the last two 
months." 

Silence but for the shuffle and thump of booted 
feet on the roadway. The rollicking, syncopated 
songs of yesterday were forgotten. A soft, drawl- 
ing, quavery voice from somewhere in the marching 
ranks began the hymn : " Will There Be Any Stars 
in My Crown?" Others took it up, and to the 
words and music of the old church song those black 
boys tramped their solemn way out of camp to put 
their bodies to the chance of war on a foreign soil. 

They may not have known much about the his- 
tory of the German nation. Czars and kaisers may 
not have been any more real to their minds than 
ghosts and goblins. It is probable that the major- 
ity of them knew very little of the intricacies of 
Balkan politics. But, believe me, they knew that 
they were going to a dangerous place. They were 
not leaving with any idea of enjoying a pleasure 
picnic. They knew ! I know very little of the 



Making Soldiers in Dixie 191 

rights and wrongs of what is spoken of as the Negro 
Problem of the South; I beheve that, whatever the 
rights and wrongs of it may be, it will prove much 
easier of adjustment after this war is over. 



V 
A COUNTRY TO BE PROUD OF 

On a nipping clear evening, in company with a 
Southern friend, I was loafing through the camp in 
a car. The blare of a band — a harsh rider on the 
back of that soft southern wind — startled us. We 
stopped. On an open plain near by a battalion was 
going through the ceremony of retreat. We 
watched the companies and the band go through the 
evolutions. At last one company advanced bearing 
aloft the colors. 

The flag was a brilliant patch of color against the 
dark of the pine-woods background. My Southern 
friend swore a little prayer. 

" Say ! A live American he-man who couldn't 
get in under that flag and go some place that ought 



192 The Yanks are Coming! 

to be gone to, he ain't alive in the first place, he 
ain't a ' he ' in the second place, he ain't an Ameri- 
can in the third place, and in the fourth place he 
just naturally ain't ! " 

The soldiers came to attention in battalion front, 
and the martial notes of the national air rode 
proudly abroad on the rising night wind. My 
friend and I uncovered and sat in silence until the 
echo of the last note had died away. My friend 
blew his nose hard and winked his eyes clear of a 
mist that had gathered in them. 

" Now, I reckon some folks, they'd go an' call 
this just plain emotionalism," he said as he started 
the car. " But it ain't. No, sir! It's just realiza- 
tion of the fact that I've got a mighty fine country to 
love, an' that I'm man enough to love it from the 
upstanding patch of hair on my head that won't 
listen to no brush, clean on down just as far as I go ! 
That's what it is ! That band was saying to me : 

* Frank, you got a wonderful country. It belongs 
to you an' you belong to it.' An' I say to myself : 

* By golly, you're right. I'd most forgot it ! ' An' 



Making Soldiers in Dixie 19^ 

when I come to think of it, I'm real proud an' awful 
humble at one an' the same time; an' because, for 
a little time, I understand how things really are, I 
get a little blurred in the eyes. I tell you, we people 
down here in the South have had our eyes blurred 
up considerable in the last few months. We've got 
an awful lot to remind us how things really are. 
Everywhere you go now, all over the South, there's 
soldiers coming to camp or going home on leave, an' 
every one of them fellows in uniform is a message 
that says the same thing that band back there was 
saying to me. We people down here ain't often 
forgetting these days that we got a country to be 
proud of; an', Mr. Man, I'm making a bet an' a 
prayer that when these Southern fellows get over 
there, they're going to act up in such a way that 
their country'll have a chance to be proud of them." 
I can echo my friend's prayer and congratulate 
him on his bet. The knowledge that the Southern 
soldier must acquire is a knowledge of technique. 
The South needs no training in courage. The 
South needs no bolstering of the will to conquer and 



194 '^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

endure. The South has traveled a hard road with- 
out fainting, and endured without complaint. The 
grandsons of the gallant men who fought under the 
Stars and Bars are standing retreat under the Stars 
and Stripes; the will of the men of yesterday, who 
backed a lost cause to the ultimate of human endur- 
ance, steels the man of to-day for the coming com- 
bat; the spirit of the men who fought with Lee is 
alive in the breasts of the men who will fight with 
Pershing. 



THE FLYING BEDSTEADS 



THE SHORTEST ROAD TO FRANCE 

The Flying Bedsteads was what the homesick, 
steel-torn veteran from the western front called the 
service when he showed up at the United States 
Army Ambulance Camp at Allentown, Pennsyl- 
vania, and tried to enlist. 

" Put in two years with the Canadian infantry," 
he explained. " Got too intimate with some Ger- 
man H. E. (high explosive), an' when they got 
through peelin' most o' the Krupp output o' steel for 
that year away from among my bones, I had a dis- 
charge comin' to me. I was glad to get away, but 
I'm awful lonesome to get back into it. My legs 
are too bad shot up for the infantry, so I thought 
I might hook on here with the Flyin' Bedsteads. I 

195 



196 The Yanks are Coming! 

ain't much on the hoof any more, but I can come as 
near makin' a flivver sit up an' sing Hke a five-thou- 
sand-dollar tourin' car as the next one ! " 

The veteran wouldn't do for the Flying Bed- 
steads, alias United States Army Ambulance Serv- 
ice. The service is limited, and it has had its pick 
of the best. It is peculiarly the service of the col- 
lege man. It is estimated that more than 85 per 
cent, of the enlisted men are from colleges. Thirty- 
five colleges, varying in location from the State of 
Washington to Florida and from California to 
Maine, have contributed sections to the organization 
of six thousand-odd men who have been trained in 
first aid, litter drill, and modern ambulance work in 
the camp at Allentown, Pennsylvania, since its es- 
tablishment in June. Most of the men enlisted soon 
after college was out, believing that the shortest 
road to France was the one to be traveled by the 
Flitting Flivvers. They all expected to be at the 
front within six weeks or two months. But the 
plans of men, particularly in the army, gang aft 
agley. As the boys now sing : 



The Flying Bedsteads \{^'^ 

They told us in six weeks we'd be in France. 
It took us six months to get one pair of pants 
In the army, 
In the army. 



II 

THEY'LL BE « OVER THERE " BEFORE LONG 

Some of them have gone across. If wishing 
helps, all the rest will be Over There before long. 
There has been some disposition to regard ambu- 
lance work as a soft snap. Not the kind for which 
these boys are preparing! They work immediately 
behind the front lines and take their proportionate 
chance with the men of any other service. It is a 
hard, lonely, dangerous work of mercy, involving 
many risks and small chance for retaliatory action. 
The service has been reorganized according to the 
French system. A section consists of forty-five 
men and twenty ambulances, and is commanded by 
a first lieutenant. These lieutenants were in the be- 
ginning all medical men. Fifty of the enlisted men 
have been raised from the ranks to date to command 
sections, and it is believed that that many more will 



198 The Yanks are Coming! 

be given shoulder bars to release the medical men 
for medical work. When the service takes the field 
in force practically all the section officers command- 
ing will be enlisted men who have won their com- 
missions. 

Thank the men of the ambulance service at Allen- 
town for this. They have proved that the average 
steam-heated American of the present generation is 
as able to maintain himself comfortably under 
primitive conditions as were our pioneer ances- 
tors. 

Necessity was the mother of their opportunity to 
prove themselves. The main camp of the ambu- 
lance service is in the old fair grounds on the edge 
of Allentown. In the cow barns, grand stand, and 
exhibition halls the men spent the summer. Came 
fall. Adequate standard barracks were in process 
of construction, but they weren't ready as quick as 
cold weather. It was necessary to move some of 
the men temporarily until completion of the winter 
barracks. Major Metcalf, a veteran of service in 
Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines — the man 



The Flying Bedsteads 199 

who was in charge of the ambulance work at Mes- 
sina — had a plan. 

Ill 

REPRODUCING ACTUAL CONDITIONS AT 
THE FRONT 

On the 30th of October he led eighteen hundred 
men with their regulation packs to Guth's Station, 
five miles from Allentown. The spot where he 
halted them looks like an exaggeration of conditions 
at a bad spot on the western front. 

" We're home, boys," the major told his men in 
effect. " You have here a lot of nice hilly earth and 
shovels with which to dig in it. You have small 
timber and brush and axes wherewith to cut it. You 
also have your pup tents. Some of you also have 
money, but you are not to spend it for anything to 
put into your shelters. You are to make shift with 
what you find. Help yourselves to the comfort." 

When I visited the place it was colder than the 
north side of a pawnbroker's heart ! I drove out 
from Allentown with Major Metcalf and Lieutenant 



200 The Yanks are Coming! 

Felts. A few miles out we topped a rise, and I saw 
across a small valley what looked like something 
the cliff dwellers forgot to take into antiquity with 
them : rows of magnified woodchuck holes dug in the 
side of a steep hill and thin wisps of smoke floating 
up apparently from out the ground. We swung 
past various sentries, bumped up and down over a 
strip of tough territory that laid false claim to being 
a road, and suddenly emerged on a bit of high 
ground alongside a row of what passes in the ambu- 
lance service for country homes. Out in the prairie 
country we used to call them cyclone cellars. I 
climbed out of the car, let myself gingerly down a 
ladder into a shoulder-deep narrow ditch, pulled back 
a bit of burlap that hung over the entrance to the 
dugout — and got the surprise of my life! The 
place was warm and dry and excellently ventilated. 
Not only that, but it was cheery. A snapping wood 
fire was burning in a fireplace cut out of the clay 
and built up with rock. The thing drew ! I visited 
dozens of dugouts later, and every one had in it a 
fireplace that drew! For years I've been renting 



The Flying Bedsteads 201 

apartments with fireplaces, and I had to go to hand- 
made holes in the ground to find one that would 
draw ! On one side of the dugout was a double- 
decked buiik cleverly ripped from saplings. Be- 
fore the fire was a homemade chair and table. A 
soldier was asleep in the upper bunk. He had plenty 
of blankets, but he'd kicked them off. He didn't 
need them. The place was as warm as my New 
York apartment on its good behavior and, with that 
fireplace drawing so miraculously, a darned sight 
better ventilated. Ducking out, I met the sleeping 
soldier's bunkie coming in. 

" Some place ! " I complimented him. " How 
about it in a hard rain ? Will she turn water ? " 

" Like a greasy duck," he assured me. " We 
just had two days' hard rain, an' she went through 
it dry as a bone." 

The camp is an underground convention of college 
men. One steep hillside honeycombed with dugouts 
and laced with perilous paths protected by finger- 
thin sapling railings that are nice to look at but 
fatal to lean on is the estate of the University of 



202 The Yanks are Coming! 

Michigan men. They are nearly as proud of their 
dugouts as they are of their Alma Mater. Here in 
a pleasant hole in the ground is a native son of the 
University of California; there a boy from Oregon; 
in the next hillside one who confesses to Washington 
State; near by a grinning husky blond who properly 
identifies himself with the University of Minnesota. 

The men in the dugouts showed a better health 
rate than those in barracks. There was no sickness 
among them except the normal run of minor ail- 
ments, and that was below normal. 

" These men are ready to take the field in France 
to-morrow after the experience they've gained here," 
Major Metcalf told me. " They've operated here 
under war conditions and done it successfully. 
They can take a pick, a spade, and an ax and make 
a home for themselves anywhere now." 

I may add that the men at Guth's Station had to 
build their dugouts during off hours. The country 
there furnishes a good example of conditions ex- 
pected on the western front, and the men have been 
busy each day with war maneuvers. A front line is 



The Flying Bedsteads 203 

indicated beyond which Hes No Man's Land, raked 
by German fire. Some hundred or more of wounded 
are laid out over the landscape, and the ambulance 
rrien rush forth to label, bandage, and transport 
them to the rear. The action is most realistic. 

Recently a medical captain on an observation point 
saw a wounded man dancing about wildly in No 
Man's Land where all had been forbidden to show 
themselves. The captain swore and sent a mes- 
senger to order the rash man in. The man kept on 
dancing and refused to come in. The captain sent 
a detail to bring him in by force. The wounded 
man climbed a tree and was only brought down after 
a struggle. 

" Are you drunk ? " the captain raged when the 
man was brought before him. " What's the matter 
with you? " 

The man laughed wildly and made faces. Some 
one thought to read the description of ailment with 
which he had been tagged. It read : " Raving 
maniac from shell shock." The young man was 
only keeping in character. 



204 ^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

One zealous rookie brought back a hypothetically 
wounded man labeled : " Nose shot off." 

" No bandage ! " the lieutenant at the regimental 
dressing station yelled : " What's the matter with 
you? This man has his nose shot off, and you've 
not indicated any bandage. He'd have bled to 
death before this." 

" Oh, no, sir," the rookie declared earnestly. 
" I've indicated a tourniquet, sir, to stop the bleed- 
ing. See, sir? " 

The lieutenant looked. The rookie had strapped 
a belt about the poor man's neck as a tourniquet, and 
he was about two gasps away from suffocation. 

" I suppose you think he can live longer without 
breath than he can without blood," the lieutenant 
said sarcastically, as he relieved the patient of the 
strangling belt. " No doubt if you found a man 
with a scalp wound, you'd advise amputation of the 
head to save his life ! " 

Humping along at the tail end of a twenty-mile 
hike a column of ambulance men stumped past a 
well-kept cemetery. One youngster with an in- 



The Flying Bedsteads 205 

eradicable germ of poesy in his system admired the 
place. 

"Isn't that lovely in there? Those wonderful 
old trees! And see that mass of flowers on that 
bank up there." 

" You like it ? " growled his bunkie, whose feet 
were hurting. "That's nice! That's the place 
you're training to get strength enough to bust into ! " 

A fine body of young men representative of the 
best in American university life! They're sure 
enough of themselves and their patriotism to be able 
to grumble whole-heartedly at minor discomforts, 
and face the big troubles with an impudent grin. 
Their spirit is well shown in a letter received re- 
cently from one of their number now serving in 
France. 

" I'm sitting in mud," he wrote, " with my legs 
in mud to the knees. I'm wet to the skin and freez- 
ing cold. The shells are dropping near by. I'm 
utterly miserable, and I was never so happy in all 
my Hfe!" 



WHAT ARE WE GOING TO GET 
OUT OF IT? 

I 

THE WISE GUY 

" Go on ! Get back there now, will you ! Don't 
crowd out into the street like that. I'm tired telling 
you people the same thing over and over." 

It was a weary and earnest Home Defense 
Leaguer talking. He was on duty in upper Fifth 
Avenue while the Federalized National Guard troops 
of New York were passing in final review, 30,000 
strong, before entrainment for the mobilization 
camps and the battle mud of France. The Home 
Defense man — who was not cut out for a cop — 
was giving up his day and his temper to help keep 
the crowd in order while the soldiers passed. 
Across the street a group of Red Cross nurses stood 

206 



What Arc We Going to Get? 207 

at an upper window. At another window^ a woman 
sat knitting steadil}- as she watched. Near me stood 
two women, known to me by their conversation as 
the mother and wife of one of the marching men. 
The wife cried hysterically. The mother soothed 
her as one soothes a frightened child. The elder 
woman was serenely calm and apparently sympa- 
thetically amused by her daughter-in-law's distress. 
Comforted by the mother's composure, the wife 
ceased to weep and searched the passing ranks 
eagerly for her husband. She saw him and called 
eagerly : " Oh, Ted ! 0-o-ooh-hoo ! Teddie ! 

See, mother ; there he is. Look ! " 

The mother looked. Emotion ripped the mask of 
serenity from her face. The tears sprang from 
her eyes like hot blood from a slashed artery. The 
steady smile had been courageous camouflage. 
Brave in her turn, the wife led her gently away, 
soothing and comforting her. The soldiers 
streamed steadily down the avenue, a khaki-brown 
flood of American life flowing toward the battle 
front of civilization as water flows to the sea and * 



208 The Yanks are Coming! 

impelled thereto by as inevitable a power. Weary 
and worried, the Home Defense Leaguer strove to 
maintain order. His pleas for obedience finally at- 
tracted the unfavorable notice of a thickset, sporty- 
looking man who frowned and deliberately thrust 
himself farther out into the forbidden zone of the 
street. 

" You're a busy little pest, ain't you! " he sneered, 
when the volunteer policeman tried to push him back 
into line. " What do you want to get your disposi- 
tion all run down at the heel for, trying to show me 
where I get off? What's it to you where I stand? 
You're not getting paid for this, you know." 

The Home Defense Leaguer flushed. I could see 
in his face the muscular reflection of a mental effort 
to form some proper retort, but he was very tired. 
Under the stimulus of anger his brain produced a 
few futile thoughts and then curled up and quit for 
the day. 

" Oh, you're a wise guy, aren't you ! " was the 
very best he could offer. " Yeh ! I know. You're 
one o' these wise guys ! " 



What Are We Going to Get? 209 

The big man sneered and went his way through 
the crowd. The little Home Defense Leaguer 
looked after him resentfully. 

" One o' these wise guys," he repeated. " Get 
back there now, you people. Don't crowd, please. 
Get back." 

In the extremity of his confusion the volunteer 
had classified his man aright. The Home Defense 
Leaguer was a War Worker. The man who sneered 
was a Wise Guy. The cynical ranks of the Wise 
Guys are thinning rapidly as the war goes on, but 
still they march — the two-legged f eatherless buz- 
zards ! — seeking and finding only carrion in motive 
and deed and refusing to recognize as nutritive food 
anything that is not rotten ! 

" You're not getting paid for this, you know," 
sneers the Wise Guy to the War Worker, to the 
Home Defense man, the nurse, and the knitter, to 
the woman who waits for a son in arms, and the 
boy in uniform, training to meet his moment in this 
crucial hour of time, when man is proving himself 
lord of the beast. " What do you want to go out 



210 The Yanks are Coming! 

of your way to be patriotic for? Why risk your 
Hfe or lend your money or give your time? You're 
not getting paid for it, and only a fool gives for 
nothing." 

II 
LET US RECKON PROFITS 

There has been but little, if any, coherent reckon- 
ing of possible return from our individual and col- 
lective investment in this war. The War Worker, 
man or woman, soldier or civilian, on or behind the 
battle lines, has been too busy giving to think of 
service in terms of reward. Let me then take time 
off to total up the profits we may expect in return 
for our investment of unselfish service in this war, 
and answer the Wise Guy who sneers. 

Mr. Wise Guy, you lie ! We went into this war 
after enduring for nearly three years a verbal bom- 
bardment descriptive of its horrors and the stagger- 
ing cost in lives and money of our possible par- 
ticipation. In spite of the long-continued drum fire 
of warning words — most of it as German in origin 



What Are We Going to Get? 211 

as poison gas — we went over the top with Con- 
science, and we're in the thing to the finish. We 
didn't get into it for land or money, glory or power. 
But we're going to get something out of it, Mr. Wise 
Guy. We're going to be paid, and paid well ; paid 
as individuals and as a nation; paid in the most 
genuine coin that's been in common circulation in 
this country for some considerable time. 

Ill 
THE BY-PRODUCTS OF WAR 

I asked Secretary Franklin K. Lane if he thought 
we were going to win any positive rewards in this 
war. He thinks we are. I asked him for a general 
summary of the good things we may expect to gain 
from our effort. 

" More than ever a realization of what democ- 
racy is," he said emphatically. " We are beginning 
to give definite purpose to things that we have 
hitherto only talked about on the Fourth of July. 
There will be many by-products of this war, and 



212 The Yanks are Coming! 

they will all react for the health of the nation, physi- 
cally, socially, commercially, and morally." 

Many by-products, all of which will react for 
the health of the nation ! A reasonably large state- 
ment. 

" We have assumed obligations toward the world," 
the Secretary said, " and in so doing we have crystal- 
lized our own chaotic conceptions of ourselves into 
something real. Never again will we be able to look 
upon ourselves as before. Our basis of apprecia- 
tion has changed. We regard a man now as greater 
for what he gives than for what he has. Every one 
of the ten million people who have bought Liberty 
Bonds is using his or her money for the prosecution 
of the war, which is, in its ultimate purpose, equiva- 
lent to a religious crusade. Its purpose is to free 
the world from fear, as well as that can be done, 
and elevate man to a realization of his own nobility. 
We have presented ourselves to the world as prac- 
tical idealists. We have made ourselves the cham- 
pions of those who desire to live their own lives in 
their own way. We are committed to the proposi- 



What Are We Going to Get? 213 

tion that this world can be governed in the inter- 
ests of man by man himself by a minimum of force 
and a maximum of good will. As we cooperate in 
making this war for the ultimate spread of the 
gospel of man's dependence on man, we will learn 
to work together. Sooner or later in statuary and 
picture and in story and song this spirit will become 
visualized to our minds. The great significance of 
this crusade will live with us as a firm tradition. 
And it is spirit converted by conduct into tradition 
which makes great peoples." 

" Bunk ! " sneers the Wise Guy in answer to the 
above. " A lot of fine words. Can't eat fine words, 
can you ? " 

No, Mr. Wise Guy. You can't eat fine words, 
and you can't digest Love. Neither can you fry it 
in a skillet, nor pick it up and find out how much 
it weighs. Yet Love has a reasonably well-founded 
reputation as the greatest thing in the world; and 
words that are fine because they are expressive of 
genuine sentiments may be worth more than a cut 
of steak. 



214 '^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

Secretary Lane has given us a general statement. 
Let me particularize : 

I speak first to the woman who has invested a 
man in this war. That is the supreme investment. 
The gift of husband or son is the supreme service. 
The waiting of the woman who has given a man is 
the supreme agony. 

It isn't as bad as you think it is. Your man may 
die abroad in battle, but he also may die at home in 
bed. Death is not a thing that begins with the 
declaration of war nor ceases with the conclusion of 
peace. Death in war is not more -final than death in 
peace; it is only more obviously horrible and spec- 
tacular. 

I make no statement as to the increased risk of 
loss you incur by the investment of your man in 
this enterprise of war. No ! Money speaks for me. 
Money is not swayed by sentiment. Money is not 
unduly optimistic. Hear what Money has said : 

" I will insure the life of your man in the army 
at an increase of only 5 per cent, over the rate given 
civilians in peace time." 



What Are We Going to Get? 215 



That's what Money thinks of the risk of loss that 
you incur when you invest your man in the war. 
One of the largest life insurance companies, after 
studying the mortality figures, agreed to insure the 
entire United States army at an increase of only 5 
per cent. The offer was not accepted, but it was 
made. 

Hear Figures: During the last six months of 
19 1 6 the French lost in killed a trifle more than i 
per cent, of the total under arms. That period in- 
cludes the Somme offensive and the great struggle at 
Verdun. Figures tell you that during that time 
perhaps twelve in a thousand of the fighting French 
lost their lives. Twelve in a thousand over a heavy- 
fighting period of six months! The roll of dead 
and wounded in this war is horrible enough, but it 
is not so horrible as you think it is. Over 90 per 
cent, of the wounded so recover that they are fit to 
go back to the front as fighting men. 

We speak of certain things that act for the mak- 
ing of a man. What are they? Luxury? Idle- 
ness? Lack of responsibility? Ability to dodge 



2l6 The Yanks are Coming! 

duty? No! What then? Stern work well done, 
fidelity to duty, thrift, ideals, and, above all, con- 
scientious and willing service of some loved thing or 
person other than himself. 

If that be true, then for the increased risk of loss 
you run when you invest your man in the war, you 
get back a definite return. Judged by that stand- 
ard, the soldiers of the United States army are bet- 
ter men to-day than when they were civilians. They 
are better men physically, mentally, and morally. 
To your investment you may expect the addition 
of these profits: Higher courage, better health, 
sounder strength, decision, purpose, discipline, self- 
control, and a finer sense of morality. 

The last statement rouses a challenge. A great 
number of people honestly believe that masses of 
men in camp or billets must necessarily deteriorate 
morally. That may have been universally true yes- 
terday. It's a lie to-day when applied to the United 
States army. 

We'll ask Raymond B. Fosdick about it. Mr. 
Fosdick is chairman of the Commission on Training 



What Are We Going to Get? 217 

Camp Activities, and it is his business to know the 
moral, physical, and mental status of the men in 
training. Mr. Fosdick tells us that he does not be- 
lieve in the inevitability of certain gross immorali- 
ties and degrading influences that have always 
hitherto been closely associated with the soldier in 
camp. 

" We are working to give the soldiers every op- 
portunity to keep themselves decent," Mr. Fosdick 
tells us. " We don't expect to make winged saints 
of them, but we are relieving them of the crude and 
bestial temptations with which they were formerly 
beset." 

If you think that idea is not revolutionary, you 
don't know the military camp of yesterday, from 
which came the tradition that men in the mass must 
necessarily deteriorate. 

" We plan to give the fellows in the training 
camps every possible form of good entertainment 
and recreation in their leisure hours," Mr. Fosdick 
goes on. " The men in the cantonments have Wed- 
nesday and Saturday afternoons and their Sundays 



21 8 The Yanks are Coming! 

free from military duty. We fill up that time for 
them with opportunities for good reading, whole- 
some entertainments, and all forms of athletics. I 
firmly believe that the average young American boy 
in the training camps to-day is achieving a higher de- 
gree of sane morality than ever before." 

It is a n^w thing, our attainment of that degree of 
common, ordinary civilized horse sense that permits 
us to aid our young soldier in his problem of leading 
a human and decent life instead of surrounding him 
with an environment in which only men of the high- 
est natures and strongest wills can possibly maintain 
a standard equivalent to that of a respectable beast! 

IV 
REVITALIZING THE RACE 

The providing of entertainment and reading mat- 
ter is not all that Mr. Fosdick and his workers ac- 
complish. Any one of the underworld will bear 
profane testimony that the immediate neighborhood 
of an American training camp is no comfortable spot 



What Are We Going to Get? 219 

for the bar or brothel that would profit by the men 
in uniform. 

I hear the voice of the Wise Guy saying : " Huh ! 
Thus-and-such troops were a hard-drinking lot, and 
they fought well, didn't they? They were brave 
enough, weren't they? What have you got to say 
about them? " 

Not a word about them, Mr. Wise Guy. But I'll 
ask you to imagine this : Two coaches of rival col- 
lege track teams sit fanning in a cafe. 

*' I've got a young fellow running for me who is 
some twentieth-century kid," says one coach. 
" He's got a bad case of chronic chilblains on both 
feet, and he's so frightfully afflicted with adenoids 
that his breathing is awful. But, oh, how that 
boy can pick up his feet and put 'em down again! 
He's good for the hundred in nine and four-fifths 
any time he starts." 

" That's going some," the rival coach admits re- 
luctantly. " I've got a reasonably promising young 
freshman running for me. But, doggone the luck, 
there isn't anything wrong with him. He can do the 



220 The Yanks are Coming! 

hundred in ten flat, but the trouble is he's physically 
perfect. I'm afraid he'll never equal your boy. If 
there was just some way that I could give him a bad 
case of chilblains, the same as your man has, I bet 
he'd do better than nine and four-fifths; and then 
if I could only give him a bad case of adenoids or 
consumption, or break his leg or something ! Shades 
of Duffy and Wefers ! How he'd be able to fly ! I 
bet if he felt bad enough and was properly crippled 
up, he could break the tape in an even nine seconds." 

Can you imagine two coaches talking like that? 
If you can, book up with a film concern and make 
a million. You're worth it as a scenario writer. 

Physically, of course, the revitalization of the 
race is being accomplished in the training camps 
by simplicity of life and proper outdoor exercise. 
There is no doubt about that. Look 'em over at any 
camp. See them by the hundreds — bronzed and 
straight and vital — who but yesterday were pale and 
stooped and lackadaisical. The spirit of the pioneer 
still lives in the American heart, and in the training 
camps to-day we are reendowing the American body 



What Are We Going to Get? 221 

with the strength that was the power of the pioneer. 
" The training camp to-day is not essentially dif- 
ferent from a big university," Mr. Fosdick tells us. 
" Perhaps the fellows work and study a good deal 
harder in the training camps than they would in a 
university. This war is a highly specialized affair. 
It's a modern science which the men must learn by 
studious application to the problems of drill and 
trench. They acquire the habit of study, of applica- 
tion, in the training camp of to-day." 

V 

GETTING THE HABIT OF WORK 

In one national army cantonment that I visited 
there were less than 5 per cent, of college men in 
the ranks. More than 95 per cent, of the men in 
that camp were getting what Mr. Fosdick considers 
essentially equivalent to a college education. I have 
before me the schedule of classes for one day of a 
regiment of engineers in one of the national army 
cantonments. All a man in that regiment has to do 



222 The Yanks are Coming! 

is get up at 6 A. M. and work steadily until 5.30 at 
night. During that time he has to do all his clean- 
ing up, be present at reveille and stand retreat, at- 
tend six different classes at which he must use both 
his brain and his body, and eat his breakfast and 
dinner. That's all, unless he be a noncommissioned 
officer, in which case he attends noncom school from 
seven to eight or after. 

I know a sergeant in that regiment. Ten weeks 
prior to the time of this writing he went to camp, 
pale of face from a long siege of office work, and 
pale of character from doing a long succession of 
trivial jobs. He was somewhat aimless, rather 
flabby, and altogether uninteresting. To-day I don't 
know a more eager thinker. He carries himself 
with an air, looks his man in the eye without effort, 
and I'll put myself to considerable inconvenience 
for the opportunity to talk with him. 

" I wouldn't miss what I'm going through in the 
training camp for anything," he tells me. " It's the 
making of me. It's the making of thousands of 
others out there at camp. Some of them don't real- 



What Are We Going to Get? 223 

ize it yet, but you'd be surprised at the number of 
them tliat do. I know lots of habitual booze fighters 
out there who are beginning to realize that total 
abstinence is a pretty good bet. One of them came 
to me the other day and said : ' I hate to admit it, 
but I ne\er felt so good in my life. I despise a pro- 
hibitionist, but if I become fully satisfied that total 
abstinence is largely responsible for the way I feel, 
I'm going to be one, no matter how much it hurts 
my feelings.' " 

" Do you think your present training is going to 
be of value to you in your profession after the 
war? " I asked him. 

" I know it will," he assured me. He drew a deep 
breath and threw back his shoulders. " It's done 
this for me already : I know that whatever I do, I'll 
never again work indoors over a drafting board, 
ril swing a pick in the ditch if I have to, but never 
again will I fiddle with a pen in the ofihce." 

There spoke the reawakened spirit of the Ameri- 
can pioneer! That boy is many per cent, stronger 
to-day in mind, character, and body than when he 



224 The Yanks are Coming! 

first put on the uniform of an American soldier. 
The woman who invested that man in the army is 
being richly repaid already. I know because I know 
the woman, and I've seen her eyes luminous with 
pride as she looked at the man her man has come 
to be. 

Compelled by the necessities of the war to produce 
effectives, we are fostering the spirit of morality in 
the training camps; and by conduct that spirit is 
being converted into one of those traditions of fine 
character that m^ke great peoples — and worth- 
while individuals. 

" All rot ! " sneers the Wise Guy. " An army is 
immoral, and no amount of effort will make it less 
so." 

You haven't guessed right on this war yet, Mr. 
Wise Guy. The Germans are the champion Wise 
Guys of the world, and their guessing percentage in 
this war is below zero. 

Hugh Gibson, the secretary of the American Le- 
gation in Belgium, tells in his diary of the astonish- 
ment of the German diplomats when they realized 



What Are We Going to Get? 225 

that the Belgians were to fight. " The fools ! " they 
exclaimed again and again in angry amazement. 
" Why do they do it? They'll be ground to pieces. 
Annihilated. Why do they do it?" 

The German diplomats were Wise Guys, you see. 
They were playing humanity to run according to 
the dope in the Wise Guy's form sheet, and they 
were astounded at seeing horses they had looked 
upon as mere goats — dead ones — such horses as 
Truth, Honor, Loyalty, and Self-respect — flashing 
around the first turn, showing every evidence of the 
speed and stamina of thoroughbreds. 

VI 
SOMETHING TO DO 

Millions of women knitting who but yesterday 
were semi-idle or selfishly busy. Millions of women 
earnestly seeking the best method of service to their 
country! Millions of men inehgible for military 
service searching for an opportunity to give some- 
thing of themselves to the common cause! What 



226 The Yanks are Coming! 

is their payment ? What are they as individuals and 
we as a nation going to gtt out of it? Hear Henry 
P. Davison, partner in the financial house of Morgan 
and the chairman of the Red Cross War Council : 

" I never thank any one for what he does for the 
Red Cross; I congratulate him. I am not a senti- 
mentalist. I am supposed to be practical, and I have 
never made a more practical statement than when 
I say that the people of Europe, who have been at 
war more than three years have changed for the 
better. Acrimony and selfishness and all the other 
characteristics that go to make men small and petty 
have vanished. That's going to be true of the peo- 
ple of the United States!" 

That's what Mr. Davison promises the people of 
the United States as a people. Let me tell two 
instances of individuals who found life by losing it 
in the service of the Red Cross. 

An elderly woman living in New York. She is 
a widow and the mother of grown sons and daugh- 
ters. Her life had been given to their care. They 
are all married and in homes of their own. The 



What Are We Going to Get? 227 

woman was old and lonely, broken in health and 
spirit. Her life with all its interests was behind 
her. 

Shopping one morning in a big department store, 
she had occasion to speak with one of the fore- 
women. The woman of the store received a mes- 
sage while they were talking, read it, and made an 
impatient exclamation. 

" Bad news? " the semi-invalid old woman asked. 

" Knitting teacher can't come," the forewoman 
explained. " We have a class of three hundred or 
more of the girls in the store that meets at noon. 
The girls bring their lunches and learn to knit for 
the soldiers during their noon time. They'll be 
dreadfully disappointed." 

Knitting! The old woman smiled reminiscently. 
She dated back to the time when knitting was an 
accomplishment of which all well-bred young ladies 
were proud. She said something of the sort to the 
forewoman. 

" Stay and teach the girls this noon," the fore- 
woman suggested eagerly. 



228 The Yanks are Comingi 

"Oh, I couldn't. Really! I'd be afraid. So 
many of them ! I wouldn't dare." 

" Please ! The girls are so anxious to learn ! 
They'll be so disappointed if they don't get their 
lesson to-day." 

The woman stayed. Timidly she faced the big 
class of girls. Quaveringly she gave them instruc- 
tion. They began to work. She passed among 
them illustrating different stitches. She knew more 
about knitting in a minute than the teacher they had 
had would ever learn. Timidity was lost in the en- 
thusiasm of instruction. The crowd of young girls 
cheered her. They asked her to come back next day. 
She did. She went the next day and the next. To- 
day she's as busy as any young business man, and as 
well and happy. Her eyes are bright and her head 
is up, her step is firm, and she looks eagerly for 
the coming of each new day with its opportunity for 
joyful service. She lost her life of lonely and hope- 
less retrospection in the service of her country, and 
in the loss of it she found her life ; found that inter- 
est in living which is making her traverse of that 



What Are We Going to Get? 229 

final span of her existence one of the pleasantest 
bits of her mortal journey. 



I VII 

A NEW LIFE TO LIVE 

A fat old bachelor, usually drunk. Not in any 
ungentlemanly, gutter-swabbing way, but — drunk. 
I didn't much blame him. He was old and burned 
out and had nothing to live for. I have often won- 
dered — always with a little shudder of horror — 
what his thought of the immediate future must have 
been. I have his personal guaranty that it was not 
pleasant. He had the remnants of a business which 
netted him enough to live respectably and remain 
politely drunk. When the United States declared 
war he offered his service as a Home Defense man. 
They laughed at him. I laughed when he told me 
what he'd done. He wrote to the governor of New 
York offering to do something — anything. How 
he treasures the governor's polite refusal of his 
services! Three months after the declaration of 



230 The Yanks are Coming! 

war I met him on the street, and asked him how he 
was getting along. 

" Cutting down on my drinking as much as pos- 
sible," he told me. " Want to get in to help out with 
this war in some way, and I'm doing my best to get 
into condition. I've got myself down to five drinks 
a day now, and I hope to do better soon." 

I left him with a real ache in my heart. It was 
pitiful to me, that hopeless, fat old man with the 
spirit of the patriot chained to inaction in that abused 
old body. 

Not three weeks ago I met him at breakfast in an 
uptown restaurant. He rose at his table and waved 
to me clear across the place. 

" I'm going," he shouted. " Got my passport 
yesterday. See ? Look at it. Going ' over there,' 
old boy. My passport ! Got it yesterday. Sailing 
in the morning. Oh, man! I just want to break 
loose and yell ! " 

The old man was in service! It was civilian 
clerical work behind the lines in France, but it was 
war service. He was as eager as any young boy; 



What Are We Going to Get? 231 

looking forward to that service abroad as the great 
e\ent, the great adventure of his Hfe. He whose 
life had all been behind him had turned his eyes to 
an immediate future of service, and they were bright 
and eager with expectation. That old man's un- 
selfish will for the service of his country had 
brought him a new life to live when practically life 
for him was done ! 

Tell me, Air. Wise Guy, that those who serve are 
not paid and paid well for what they do ? Probably 
you will, for you're out of temper and damning all 
things indiscriminately. It's been an awfully tough 
war on the Wise Guys. Particularly distressing to 
the Past Grand High Know-it-all of all the Wise 
Guys, the one who was so wise he found out that 
even God wasn't on the level; he found out that 
if a man was clever enough to get the inside 
divine dope and horn in on the Almighty with the 
proper pull, God would throw in with him on a 
proposition to double-cross the rest of the wide, 
wide world; the wise, wise, Super-Wise Guy of 
Potsdam. 



232 The Yanks are Coming! 

VIII 
MOBILIZING OUR SOULS 

Spirit! Good Spirit! Not the spirit of 1776. 
No! The spirit of 1917! Dare to believe that the 
spirit of to-day is better than that of yesterday. It's 
the absolute truth. Everywhere, all over the United 
States, in the training camps and among civilians, 
the kindling of the spirit of service rather than that 
of acquisition ! But yesterday the man whose deeds 
proclaimed him an altruist was a rarity, a man 
apart; to-day the man whose deeds identify him as 
other than an altruist is marked for common scorn 
as a slacker, a war profiteer, a man apart from his 
fellows. Henry P. Davison, speaking for the Red 
Cross, says that the call to war has mobilized the 
heart and soul and spirit of America. 

" Spirit ! " sneers the Wise Guy. " There's no 
such thing. A man is nothing but mouth, teeth, and 
digestive organs, entirely surrounded by animal fat 
and carried about by feet. I guess I know; I'm a 
man, and that's all I am." 



What Are We Going to Get? 233 

I'll have Mr. Davison speak again in answer. 
Hear what that practical man of dollars and cents, 
the great banker and financial expert, says of our 
spirit and its value : 

" I would rather have that spirit and fifty million 
dollars with which to fight the battle of the Red 
Cross than to have two hundred and fifty million 
dollars and attempt to work without the aid of 
American spirit." 

American spirit! We need better organization 
for the making of war. Anything is criminal which 
impedes the attainment of perfection in the organiza- 
tion of our war machinery. But while we struggle 
for perfection, remember that overorganization is 
spiritual suicide, and that ultimately spirit is the mas- 
ter of the guns. The overorganization of Autoc- 
racy in the beginning brings up the greatest number 
of guns in the shortest possible time, but the mobil- 
ized spirit of Democracy stands triumphant on the 
battle field when the guns are worn and useless; 
and the men who defend that spirit go over the top 
with a genuine cheer when the overorganized human 



234 ^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

machines of Autocracy move but sullenly and only 
to the threat of sword and pistol. 

Compelled by the necessities of this war, we are 
achieving mobilization of American spirit. Indi- 
vidually and collectively we are mobilizing all that is 
best in us. We are mohilising that spirit, and by our 
conduct we are converting it into a tradition of no- 
bility that shall mark us as a truly great people. 



IX 
THE REAL DEMOCRACY 

Follow the editorials in the papers all over the 
country. How very often do you see argument to 
this effect : " If we are fighting to make the world 
safe for democracy, we can't permit thus-and-such 
undemocratic conditions in our own country to con- 
tinue." The President's high statement of our posi- 
tion in this war is coming to be recognized as the 
standard not only of what we must fight for, but also 
of what we must live by. 

An example : A fine, big, adventure-loving young 



What Are We Going to Get? 235 

college man in the national army. I know that he is 
keen for active service. He v^aited to be selected. 
I asked him why. 

" Because if I'm not democratic enough to serve 
willingly in a democratic army, selected in a demo- 
cratic way, I'm not fit to fight for democracy," he 
said. " Oh ! I'm not knocking the volunteers. 
Don't think that. All honor to the fellows who 
were in a hurry to get there and volunteered for 
speed. But it was this way with me: After this 
country got into the war, I began arranging my af- 
fairs so that I could enlist. Shortly after conscrip- 
tion became a law I was discussing it with some 
friend. We were all agreed that conscription was 
the most scientific and democratic method of select- 
ing an army. Some one asked if I was liable for 
conscription. ' Sure ! ' I said. ' But you bet they'll 
never get me in the draft. I'm going to enlist.' I 
got to thinking over what I'd said. The more I 
thought of it the less I liked it. I was strong for 
democracy for the other fellow, but for myself I 
wanted a little class distinction. I was refusing to 



236 The Yanks are Coming! 

wait for the draft simply because I wanted to be a 
little different from the rest. I wanted to be just a 
little undemocratic. When I realized that that was 
true, I sat myself down to wait and take my chances 
with the rest. I'm hoping to get over there with this 
bunch, and shoot a bullet or two to help make the 
world safe for democracy, but in the meantime I'm 
happy to think that I'm honestly trying to make my- 
self fit for the democracy we're going over to fight 
for." 

By our effort in this war we are identifying within 
ourselves the real spirit of democracy and converting 
it by our conduct into that tradition of comradely 
solidarity that makes great peoples. 

We are achieving a greater perfection of democ- 
racy, Mr. Wise Guy. That's the payment. 
Throughout history brave men have died by the mil- 
lion to gain it. 

By our effort in the prosecution of this war we 
are attaining temperance. From the time war was 
declared, the arrests for drunkenness in the city of 
New York steadily decreased until in August they 



What Are We Going to Get? 237 

reached the unprecedentedly low figure of 969 for 
the entire month. The psychopathic ward of Belle- 
vne has had fewer patients in the last six months 
than during any similar period in its history. In 
NoNember, 191 7, the Kings County Hospital was 
sheltering less than half its accustomed quota of al- 
coholic patients. I could go on ad lib. with cor- 
roborative figures that are before me. The steward 
of one of the big New York clubs said to me dis- 
gustedly : " There's practically no drinking any 
more at all. Not what you'd really call drinkin'. 
It's all happened since we got into the war. I don't 
know what's the matter with the boys. They don't 
seem to have the heart for the drinkin' that they 
used to have, an' the place is that sober an' quiet 
after midnight you'd think the club was nothin' but 
a library where no talkin' is allowed." 

Urged on by the necessity for physical and mental 
alertness that this war demands, we are by our con- 
duct converting the spirit of temperance into a tradi- 
tion of sobriety that will do its part in establishing 
us as a great people. 



238 The Yanks are Coming! 

X 
A SPENDTHRIFT NATION 

More than any other country in the world, Amer- 
ica needs to learn thrift. More than any other coun- 
try we need to be taught to save. We are the 
spendthrift of the nations. The carelessly wasteful 
habits of the free-grass, free-land, and buffalo days 
have come to us in the present. Our national slogan 
has been : " Keep the change." The Liberty Loan 
campaign was the first national attempt to teach or 
learn the art of saving. Hear President Wilson : 

"If this country can learn something about saving 
out of this war, it will be worth the cost of the war; 
I mean the literal cost of it in money and resources. 
I suppose we have several times over wasted more 
than we are about now to spend. We have not 
known that there was any limit to our resources. 
We are now finding out that there may be if we are 
not careful." 

In the last campaign three hundred thousand Boy 
Scouts sold a hundred million dollars' worth of 



What Are We Going to Get? 239 

Liberty Bonds. Their selling arguments were pa- 
triotism and thrift. There's no better way of learn- 
ing a thing well than by attempting to teach it. 
Those three hundred thousand boys learned their 
lesson in their attempt to teach. Liberty Loan 
literature, urging the practice of common-sense 
thrift, probably reached every adult citizen of the 
United States. One hundred and fifty milHon pieces 
were distributed. It is estimated that in all over 
three million people gave of their time in the effort 
to make the Liberty Loan a success. Three million 
people were teaching and learning the lesson of 
thrift. 

XI 
SERVING A COMMON CAUSE 

Our army bet on itself to win to the tune of more 
than seventy-five million dollars. The officers at 
Plattsburg, most of whom had left a livelihood to 
take up training, took $1,750,000 worth of bonds. 
On the average their incomes in the army are meager 
enough in comparison with what they earn in civil 



240 The Yanks are Coming! 

life, and yet they pledged a good percentage of 
their earnings in payment for Liberty Bonds. In 
all, approximately ten million people bought bonds, 
and for the majority it was their first investment, 
their first step in the lesson of thrift. MilHons of 
people learning to save; acquiring the habit not of 
penury but of financial intelligence ! 

Necessity brought about by the war has kindled in 
us the spirit of economy, and by our conduct we arc 
converting that spirit into a tradition of thrift that 
will make our reputation as a great people financiaJy 
sound. 

High and low, rich and poor, soldier and civilian, 
man and woman, we're a better people this day than 
we were before we entered the war. The morality 
of business is better to-day than it was before the 
war. Walter S. Gifford, director of the Council 
of National Defense, knows much of the workings 
of business in its relation to the Government during 
this war. He tells me this: 

" In meeting the test of war, business has learned 
that practical idealism is simply enlightened self- 



What Are We Going to Get? 24I 

interest. We are learning that the interests of busi- 
ness are in no way distinct from the interests of 
all the people. From its experience in the war, 
business is gaining a better code of ethics and a 
national conscience." 

That's what Mr. Gifford believes. There are 
many well-informed men who honestly think as he 
does. They believe that the business men of this 
country, acting under leadership of the spirit of 
service to the common cause, are, by their conduct 
during this war, converting that spirit into a tradi- 
tion of practical commercial idealism that shall go 
far in legalizing our right to he known as a truly 
great people. 

Literally, millions of American men in service! 
Probably other millions soon ! The proud men who 
offer all ! To those who give the most, the most 
must be given! 

Everything but the carrion food of the Wise Guy 
is yours for the winning, you men in uniform. A 
man's full courage and strength are your common 
portion. To you it is given to damn fear and win 



242 The Yanks are Coming! 

love; the love for and of this country that is become 
to you as intimate a personal possession as a mem- 
ber of your own family. The fear you conquer is 
man's greatest enemy, and the love you win his great- 
est reward. Yours is the kingdom ! 

XII 
WHAT WE FIGHT FOR 

I stood recently on the deck of a New Jersey 
ferryboat with a young man, a private in the ranks, 
crossing the river to entrain for camp after a short 
furlough. It was in the neighborhood of six o'clock 
in the evening and quite dark. Downtown New 
York, its thousands of office windows alight, was a 
God's fistful of glowing jewels piled high and shin- 
ing against the black background of night sky. The 
young soldier looked and swore a reverent oath. 

" They can't beat that," he said simply and with- 
out explanation. " Not that and all that's back of 
it. Isn't it big! That's what we're fighting for! 
That down there and everything that's behind it — 



What Are We Going to Get? 243 

Chicago, Dukith, New Orleans, Cheyenne, San 
Francisco, the Rockies, the prairies — phew ! All 
the people in all those places! You know, when I 
get over — across, no matter what kind of a jam I 
may get into some time — badly hit or stuck alone 
in the dark when things are coming pretty thick — 
if I can just hold the feel of all that in back of me, I 
— I think I'll manage to hold up fine." 

I think you will, old boy. Let it go at that. 



THE CLACKERS 

I 

HELPING THE KAISER 

" I ACTUALLY bcHeve my brother's glad he's a 
soldier! He was home on furlough last week, and 
he was just as enthusiastic as he could be." 

" Poor boy ! Oh, isn't it a shame ! All carried 
away by it too, I suppose? " 

" He's wild to get over to France. I said to him 
while he was home, I said : * You'll get plenty of 
France, young man,' I said. * If you could look 
ahead and see just exactly what you're going to 
go through, you wouldn't be in any hurry to get to 
France,' I said. But there's no telling him any- 
, thing. He's just itching to get over and get into 
it." 

"Poor boy! He little knows what's ahead of 

him. If some one could just make him see what 

244 



The Clackers 245 



he'll have to go through with, he wouldn't be so anx- 
ious to get away." 

They were two in a roomful of patriotic American 
women, all knitting for soldiers. The others joined 
in. 

" A friend of my husband's who's been in camp 
for about three months was in to see us the other 
day, and you wouldn't believe how he's changed. 
He used to be a fat, jolly man. Now he's lean and 
he's just as serious as he could be. And the way he 
talked about the Germans ! Why, he actually scared 
me; he was so fierce! But I suppose they just drill 
that hate into them down there in camp." 

" I suppose so. Isn't it terrible! " 

"Awful! Just think of teaching them to hate 
like that!" 

" Oh, it's all too horrible to think of — all our 
fine young men cut off in the prime of their lives. 
I see them in the streets laughing and going about 
their business just as though they were dressed up 
in their uniforms for some kind of a picnic, and I 
think to myself : * Oh, if you could only realize 



246 The Yanks are Coming! 

what you have in store for you! If you only 
could!'" 

" But they can't. They're all just like my 
brother : wild to get over to France and fight. It's 
terrible ! " 

" Did any of you hear that the President's secre- 
tary was shot as a German spy? " 

" I did." 

" Yes." 

" I heard that." 

** So did I." 

" I heard it, but I saw later in some of the papers 
that it was a He." 

" Yes, I saw that, too ; but you can't tell by what 
the papers say. That may be some sort of censor- 
ship or something like that, you know." 

" Yes, that's true ; you never can tell by what you 
see in the papers." 

" It wouldn't surprise me a bit if he had been 
shot." 

" You can't tell. Did you hear about that ship- 
load of American soldiers being: sunk? " 



The Clackers 247 



" No. Is it possible? " 

" That's what I hear. Of course there wasn't 
anything in the papers about it, but I heard it on 
good authority. A friend of mine knows a fellow 
who has a friend that was on board the transport 
and he's over in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the 
hospital with both legs shot off. The Germans 
shelled the lifeboats after they sank the ship. I hear 
there were only a few got away alive." 

"Oh!" 

" Ain't that awful ! " 

" I wouldn't be a bit surprised." 

" You never can tell what's going on." 

" Maybe they've sunk lots of others we didn't 
hear about." 

" I wouldn't be surprised." 

"Oh, isn't it awful!" 

" A friend of mine was telling me the other day 
that they'd shot lots of men out at Camp Upton. 
Fellows who tried to desert, you know, and all that 
sort of thing. I hear they're having a terrible time 
with some of the men out there. Of course the 



248 The Yanks are Coming! 

papers don't say anything about it, but I guess it's 
so just the same," 

" I wouldn't be surprised. The papers don't say 
anything about all the American soldiers that died 
in France of pneumonia either, but there's been hun- 
dreds and hundreds of them die that way since they 
went over. They had the cheapest kind of clothing, 
you know, and it melted right off of them as soon as 
it got wet, and they just died like flies, of pneu- 
monia." 

" Oh ! I hadn't heard anything about that. Is 
that so?" 

" Well, that's what I hear." 

"Oh, my!" 

" It's too terrible for words." 

" I hadn't heard about it, but it doesn't surprise 
me. If they don't die one way, they do another. I 
tell you when a man goes to France these days he 
doesn't come back. That's all. He just doesn't 
come back. We've never heard half of what those 
Germans have got up their sleeves. They've got 
ways of killing we never heard tell off. I tell you 



The Clackers 249 



when a soldier boy gets on a transport that's the end 
of him. There'll be millions and millions and mil- 
lions of American boys killed before we ever see the 
end of this." 

"Oh!" 

"Oh, my!" 

" Oh, my goodness ! " 

"Oh, isn't it awful!" 

" Oh ! All our fine young men ! " 

"Oh, my!" 

"Oh!" 

II 
INVOLUNTARY TRAITORS 

Click-clack. Knit-knock. The knitting knock- 
ers were at it. The clackers were in session. A 
roomful of patriotic American women sat there 
clacking. They were all knitting for soldiers. 
There they sat making sweaters and trouble for the 
men who were enlisted to fight in their protection. 
There they sat knitting for the corn fort of American 
soldiers and releasing the most deadly of all the poi- 



250 The Yanks are Coming! 

sonous gases that the German mind has invented. 

Every he that those women v^ere uttering was a 
he first uttered by a paid German spy and carefuHy 
fostered by German propagandists. The damage 
they were doing was a damage that BerHn would 
be glad to pay real money for. Those women were 
involuntary traitors, and, because they did their work 
of treachery all unconscious of its nature, th^ work 
was the more to Berlin's liking. The damage to 
America was the greater because it was done — all 
unwittingly, but nevertheless done — by loyal Amer- 
ican women. 

Click-clack, knit-knock. Making garments to 
warm a soldier's body and sentiment to cool his 
courage ! Americans speaking aloud the things that 
Germans dare but whisper; loyal American women 
working the will of the Kaiser! Clicking their 
needles to the glory of Uncle Sam and clacking their 
tongues to the good of Von Hindenburg ! At worst 
the slacker withholds aid from America ; the clacker 
does definite enemy work. The clacker is worse 
than the slacker. 



The Clackers 251 



III 
DEFINITE EXAMPLES 

I give definite examples of the injury done our 
arms and our cause by the slackers : A soldier 
friend of mine visited me. He was about to return 
to camp after a short furlough spent at home. I 
asked him when he expected to be in town again on 
leave. 

" I don't want to come home again till the end of 
the war," he said hotly. " Believe me, Bill, I'm 
sick of it." 

"Sick of what?" 

" This everlasting drooling and bawling and boo- 
hooing that I have to stand for when I come home. 
I can't put up with any more of it. You know. 
Bill, I'm no braver than the next man; I'm no up- 
an'-at-'em guy. I don't care anything about rare 
meat, and I'm one of the most innocent bystanders 
that ever kept out of trouble. I read a lot about 
this war before we got into it, and everything I read 
gave me the willies. I used to think of those French 



252 The Yanks are Coming! 

and English soldiers going over the top and fighting 
with the bayonet, and all that, and wonder what 
kind of stuff they could be made of to go through 
with it. I was perfectly certain that I couldn't do 
it. Then we got into the mess ! That's the way I 
felt. I knew I had to enlist, just the same as I'd 
have to jump in and fight if I saw a couple of bur- 
glars trying to murder my mother; but, Bill, I was 
sick from the thought of it. I tried to kid myself 
into going into some noncombatant branch of the 
service where I could keep clear of the real fighting, 
but I couldn't make it stick. I knew I couldn't live 
with myself if I didn't come to life and enlist. 

" Finally I took the worst of it and enlisted in the 
infantry. When I took off my clothes to be ex- 
amined I was hoping there might be something 
wrong with me and that I'd get turned down. I was 
that bad. I went through flying. Good night! 
For a week or more after I enlisted I was simply 
sick ! Then I began to try to make a soldier out of 
myself. You see, I was afraid I'd run when I got 
under fire, or just lie down and shake, or some darn 



The Clackers 253 



fool thing. So while they were drilling my legs I 
began to drill myself inside. I argued it out with 
myself for weeks, and finally I became convinced 
that I was no more of a coward than hundreds of 
thousands of other men who'd taken the gaff in this 
war, and that when my time came, I'd stay up and 
keep going until I got knocked down. It's all right. 
Bill. I know now that I'm going to be able to stand 
up and take it, but it's going to be an awful job. 
I've got to watch myself all the time. I can't be 
feeling bad and Avorrying and homesick and keep up ; 
and if I don't keep up — good night ! I won't take 
it like I ought to when my time comes. And that's 
why I wish I couldn't get home any more. Bill. My 
mother and both my sisters are glad I'm in uniform, 
and they're proud of me, and all that, and yet they 
do all they can to break me up and make a bad sol- 
dier out of me. That's a fact ! Every time I come 
home they moan and groan and sigh around till I'm 
a wreck. I think all the world of my mother and 
the kids, Bill, but I just can't stand it to come home 
any more." 



254 ^^^ Yanks are Coming! 

" Why don't you tell them frankly how they affect 
you?" 

" I can't, Bill. I've tried, but it's no good. If I 
try to keep them from crying over me, they think 
I'm getting heartless, and they cry all the more. 
When I get bucked up so I can laugh about the work 
in the trenches, they seem to think I'm forgetting the 
seriousness of the war and need to be told how 
tough it is. It's the limit. Bill. They're perfectly 
wilHng for me to go and get killed if necessary in 
the performance of my duty, but they seem to think 
it's some kind of a crime not to cry and moan over 
me whenever I'm here. I haven't got any super- 
fluity of starch, and they take out of me what little 
I've got. The quicker I get to France the better 
I'll like it." 

That fellow is in France to-day. His mother and 
sisters are proud of him. They are sure he'll make 
a good soldier — and they are doing all they can to 
make him a bad one. They are clackers. I am per- 
fectly certain that they clack in their letters to him. 
I am sure they write him letters full of love and 



The Clackers 255 



gloom, and I am sure that after the receipt of each 
such letter that boy's got to go off by himself and 
fight anew against discouragement and weakness. 
It seems as though the Germans ought to be enough 
for an American boy to have to fight against in 
France. 

" If I could just stay in camp all the time, I 
wouldn't mind," another soldier told me. He is a 
thin, sensitive, artistic fellow, and I know some- 
thing of the agony of mind that preceded his deci- 
sion to enlist. " But after I've been in town for 
a time on leave, I feel as though I'd much rather 
shoot myself now than take my chance of some 
German doing it later." 

" What makes you feel that way ? " I en- 
quired. 

" The talk I hear. You know I was a pacifist 
before we went into this war. I didn't believe war 
was ever right under any circumstances. I thought 
that America was a better nation than any of the 
belligerents because she remained neutral and re- 
fused to accept any of Germany's hostile acts as a 



256 The Yanks are Coming! 

cause of war. You know that I beheved that, 
Bill." 

" Yes," I admitted. " I think you did." 
" I was stunned when we went into it," he con- 
tinued. " I didn't think it was right. I felt that I'd 
have to be a conscientious objector and refuse to 
fight under any circumstances. I began to study 
war and its causes just as one would study mathe- 
matics. I couldn't find any light. I hated mili- 
tarism, and I believed that we were becoming mili- 
taristic. War was wrong, and we were wrong to 
be at war. That was as far as I could get. I made 
up my mind that under no circumstances would I 
carry a gun and kill a fellow being. I stood on the 
sidewalk in New York one afternoon watching a 
regiment pass. The flag came opposite me, and as 
a matter of form I took off my hat. As I stood 
there bareheaded looking at the flag, I suddenly be- 
gan to cry, and when I began to cry I began to see 
what I'd been looking for. I saw that that flag stood 
for the most powerful opposition to militarism the 
world has known — the free will of the people of 



The Clackers 257 



the United States. I saw that that flag was what 
it was because men who hated war just as much as 
I did had gone to war and died for it. I saw that 
the only way to continue that power in opposition 
to militarism was to fight for it. It became plain 
to me in a flash that submission to German militarism 
was a crime, and that the only alternative to sub- 
mission was war. So I went to war. I enlisted that 
afternoon, and the only times since that I've doubted 
the righteousness of my actions are the times I've 
been in town on leave." 

" What do you run into in town that makes you 
feel that way ? " I asked him. 

" Suspicion, doubt, pessimism," he said quickly. 
" Suspicion of the army, doubt of the absolute 
righteousness of our position in the war, and a 
belief that we are so inferior to the Germans that 
we haven't a chance to 6.6 anything but die. Out 
in camp I know that I'm right in being in this war. 
I know that we can lick the Germans, and I know 
that we're going to do it. It never occurs to me to 
doubt it. Out there in camp I'm happier and more 



258 The Yanks are Coming! 

sure of myself than I ever was before. But here in 
town? Bill, some of the talk I hear from real 
American men and women would get a hand in 
Berlin. They say things about their own country 
that a German wouldn't think of. I hear so much 
of their talk, and I begin to think : * So this is the 
country you're willing to set aside your principles 
for and go out to kill or be killed ! ' Of course then 
I go back to camp, and everything's clear to me. 
But, Bill, the American people who make cheap, 
light talk about their country and its troubles at 
this time, when hundreds of thousands of us have 
made up our minds that this country's fine enough 
to die for, ought to have something done to them ! " 

Another soldier. He never had any scruples 
against being in the war. He is a plain, ordinary, 
everyday husky American kid with a great store 
oi enthusiasm and a sense of humor. He came 
ramping into my apartment in New York recently 
and flung his service hat disgustedly across the room. 

"Say ! Is it some kind of a disgrace to be a sol- 
dier?" he asked me. "Did I enHst in the army 



The Clackers 259 



or get sent to the penitentiary? I thought I was a 
hero, but now I'm afraid I'm a crook." 

"What's happened?" 

" I got stuck for a tea uptown. There were 
ladies present — mostly ladies. I was the only man 
there. Couple of other males — he-flappers; danc- 
ing birds, you know — but no men. Nice ladies. 
Lots of 'em. Me in my uniform. I'm a hero, am I 
not? I should say not. Hero? I'm a crook, a 
dog, a slave, a murderer. Isn't it a shame that a 
nice, mild young man like me should be studying the 
anatomy of the dear sweet Gemians and learning 
how to take 'em apart ! Oh, ain't it a shame ! I 
get an earful of that stuff, and then some other girl 
— she was a nice-looking girl too, Bill — starts 
moaning about the terrible way the officers treat us. 

" It seems we lead a terrible life in the army these 
days, Bill. We have to shine officers' boots and 
darn their socks and air their sheets, and all sorts 
of terrible things. And the way they treat us! 
Oh, Bill, you wouldn't believe the way they treat 
lis. Neither would I. But that girl believed it. 



260 The Yanks are Coming! 

all right. I tried to put her straight, and — you 
know what? She thought I was so scared of my 
officers that I didn't dare tell the terrible truth even 
there. Honest ! * You poor boy ! ' she says with 
tears in her eyes. ' I understand.' Can you beat 
it? Then they all got together on a cheerful sub- 
ject. Oh, yes! They told me what a wonderful 
army Germany's got, and how we'd probably all be 
killed right off and not have to suffer long in the 
trenches. One of the dancing birds found his voice 
and sang me a tenor song about how the English 
and French were going to get us over there and then 
go home and leave us flat. Bill, if there only hadn't 
been ladies present, I bet I could have hit that fel- 
low for a world's record. Yes, sir! I bet I -could 
have knocked him farther than any one man was 
ever knocked with any one fist! After that they 
decided that there was no real sense in our being at 
war and that soldiers were a bloodthirsty lot who 
went and fought just for the fun of it anyhow, and 
really ought to be restrained. I told 'em I'd had a 
nice time and a few more lies, and came away. 



The Clackers 261 

I'm going back to camp before I get pinched for 
being an American soldier in the United States and 
sent up for Hfe for having nasty, hateful thoughts 
about the Kaiser." 

A soldier's mother. I know her. She is not 
a clacker. Understanding that the right thing for 
her boy to do was to enlist, she came forth from 
a session in her personal Gethsemane, smiling. She 
sent her boy to the recruiting station with a smile; 
sent him to camp with a smile, and she's met him 
with a smile each time he's been able to get home 
on leave. Hers is the spirit that impels armies to 
victory. 

One afternoon this brave woman was present at 
a meeting of clackers. 

" Oh, is your boy in the army? " 

"Oh! Isn't that too bad ! " 

" I suppose you feel terrible, don't you? " 

" Isn't it awful that young men like your boy 
should have to go to war! And all so useless, 
isn't it?" 

" Has he been bothered with a cold? I hear they 



262 The Yanks are Coming! 

haven't near enough blankets to keep warm. Little 
they care for them once they get them in the 
army." 

" A boy's never the same after he's been in the 
army. He'll never settle down and be content 
again." 

" I hear they're sending lots of them right into 
the trenches with hardly any training. Of course 
they don't say anything about it, but that's what 
I hear." 

"Isn't it terrible!" 

" I'm glad I haven't got any children to be taken 
from me like that." 

"Oh!" 

"Oh!" 

The clackers finally broke her down. She shed 
her first tears on account of their idle spew of gos- 
sip! She recovered her courage, but some slight 
measure of the wonderful spirit that was in that 
woman is gone. The American clackers did Ber- 
lin's work well with her. 

A woman with two sons in the army. She was 



The Clackers 263 



found with a relative at a lumber camp deep in the 
Florida woods. 

" I had to get away from the friends who wanted 
to sympathize with me because my boys were in 
service," she explained. " I'm glad my boys are 
in the army and can bear whatever's necessary; but 
I could not stand that everlasting groaning and 
moaning of people who thought they ought to sym- 
pathize with me. Sympathy? I don't want sym- 
pathy. I want to be let alone to be proud of 
my boys who are doing men's work in a manly 
way." 

The clackers had driven her from home. Click- 
clack. Knit-knock. Oh, they're a great help to 
their country, the clackers. Day by day they re- 
lease from their silly lips the poison that rots the 
heart of a nation. Not armies alone go to war 
to-day, but nations. An army to-day is no more 
powerful than the nation that backs it. Every 
civilian man and woman in the United States to- 
day is just as much in battle against Germany as 
any soldier in the front-line trenches. The work 



264 The Yanks are Coming! 

of the clackers in this country is identical in effect 
with the work of a traitor in the .army. That is 
absohite fact. 

IV 
ENEMY WORK 

Quit it ! Stop your clacking ! Stop attending to 
the Kaiser's business. Stop telling those absurd 
lies that the German agents pay money to have 
spread ! Quit being a German spy free of charge ! 
All the stock stories you tell at your clacking parties 
are lies. You gain nothing by repeating them ; you 
do infinite harm. Stop it ! 

Get this : America to-day is not only a stretch 
of country — it is a spirit. It is the spirit of De- 
mocracy. As a spirit it is that for which hundreds 
of thousands of men are ready to lay down their 
lives. A spirit that is worth that sacrifice must be 
very dear; as dear as — shall we say a wife? It 
must be so, for men leave wives and children to 
protect it. 

If you are an American man, then, and you hear 



The Clackers 265 



another man say anything against America — hit 
him! You'd hit him if he made a defamatory re- 
mark about your wife. Then hit him if he makes 
a defamatory remark about America! The spirit 
which is America is as dear to you to-day and as 
much your personal care as your wife. Don't let 
any man spread a defamatory lie about your coun- 
try and justify himself by saying: "Well, that's 
what I heard." You wouldn't let a man lie about 
your wife and go clear. Don't let him lie about 
America and get away with it. Tear into him ! 

If you are an American man and you hear a 
woman spreading lies about America, tell her in 
plain language what she's doing. Tell her she's 
consciously or involuntarily a traitor, doing enemy 
work. 

Unpleasant? Of course it's unpleasant. We 
are at war. We are at war as a nation, and war is 
unpleasant. When you nail a German-fostered lie 
in the United States you are fighting the same power 
that our soldiers fight when they go over the top 
in France. If our soldiers can face lead and steel 



266 The Yanks are Coming! 

in Europe to protect America, you can face social 
unpleasantness here to help along. 

If you are a woman and you hear a woman 
clacking, spreading lies about America, stop her. 
Tell her in plain terms what she's doing. Never 
mind being polite. War isn't. Don't argue. If 
the woman is spreading gossip defamatory of 
America, she is doing enemy work. There is no 
basis for argument with the enemy. Criticism 
through the proper channels is legitimate and 
necessary. The casual spreading of defamatory, 
gossip is always enemy work. Don't do it, and 
don't allow it to be done. 



V 

SMILE! SMILE! SMILE! 

Don't spread lies and don't be downhearted. 
Smile! Laugh! Don't sympathize with a woman 
who has a boy in the army; show her how proud 
you are of her and him. Don't moan about how 
horrible the war is. The Germans have commit- 



The Clackers 267 



ted their atrocities, done murder and mutilation, 
shot down innocent civiHan men and women by the 
hundreds just to make you moan about how terrible 
the war is. A moan from you is evidence of the 
success of the policy of frightfulness. 

Heads up, you American men and women back 
of the lines! Laugh! A laugh helps and a moan 
doesn't. No American man or woman to-day has 
any right to do anything that does not help. Laugh 
with a soldier. Laugh with a soldier's mother. 
Come on now, talk it up. Get a little of the ginger 
of the ball field into your talk and action. We're 
going to lick Germany; say so. An American sol- 
dier can lick a German. Believe it! Declare it! 
We've got to lick Germany and win this war. It's 
a tough job, but we can do it! We can do it, but 
we need all there is in everybody. If you can't 
play, root! Talk it up. And whatever you do, 
don't be a clacker ! 

THE END 



GO, GET 'EM! \ 

I ^ ^y William A. Wellman ^ \ 

\ Marechal des Logis of Escadrille N. 87 E 

The True Adventures of an American Aviator of ? 

I THE Lafayette Flying Corps who was the Only f. 

i Yankee Flyer Fighting over General Pershing's S 

! Boys of the Rainbow Division in Lorraine when ? 

they first "Went Over the Top." 2 

Cloth decorative, 121110, illustrated, $1.30 ? 

When a young Yankee athlete makes up his mind to g 
play a part in the most thrilling game which the world £ 
has ever witnessed — war in mid air — the result is cer- S 
tain to produce a heart-thrilling story. g 

Many such tales are being told to-day, but few, if § 
anj^ can hope to approach that lived and now written S 
by Sergeant "Billy" Wellman, for he engaged in some S 
of the most amazing air battles imaginable, during the 8 
course of which he sent tumbling to destruction seven g 
Boche machines — achievements which won for him the 2 
coveted Croix de Guerre with two palms. 8 

Marechal Wellman was the only American in the air 8 
over General Pershing's famous "Rainbow Division" 
when the Yankee troops made their historic first over- 8 
the-top attack on the Hun, and during that battle he g 
was in command of the lowest platoon of French fight- 
ing planes and personally disposed of two of the 
enemy's attacking aircraft. 

His experience included far more than fighting above 
the firmament. He was in Paris and Nancy during 
four distinct night bombing raids by the Boche and 
participated in rescues made necessary thereby; he, 
with a comrade, chased two hostile machines far into j| 
Germany and shot up their aviation field; he was lost j 
in a blizzard on Christmas Day; he was in intimate c 
\ touch with the men and officers of the Rainbow Divi- J 
i sion, and was finally shot down by anti-aircraft guns J 
I from a height of 5300 metres, escaping death by a y 
i miracle, but so seriously wounded that his honorable J 
J discharge followed immediately. j 

\ Sergeant Wellman's story is unquestionably the most > 
\ unusual and illuminating yet told in print. j 



THE STRANGE ADVENTURES | 
1 OF BROMLEY BARNES I 

I ^isfe Sy George Barton 

^ Author of "The Mystery of the Red Flame" "The 
5 World's Greatest Military Spies and Secret 

Service Agents" etc. 

Cloth decorative, i2mo, illustrated, $1.50 

Mr. Barton first "broke into print," as the saying 
goes, with a mystery story entitled "The Scoop of the 
Session," which was pubHshed in Collier's a number of 
years ago, and has the reputation of having written 
more short detective stories than any other writer in 
the United States. 

In this new book Mr. Barton sets forth in absorbing 
fashion the Strange Adventures of Bromley Barnes, 
retired detective, but whose interest in the solution of 
bafifling cases in public and private life is just as keen 
as in his days of active Government service. 

Worried and harassed Government officials, also per- 
plexed and anxious private individuals, seek the services 
of the astute detective in national problems and per- 
sonal matters, and just how the suave and diplomatic 
Barnes clears away mysteries makes a story that is 
mighty good reading. 



DAWSON BLACK, RETAIL 
I MERCHANT 

S ^ 3i/ Harold Whitehead §^ 

K Assistant Professor of Business Method, The College 
g of Business Administration, Boston University, 
H author of " The Business Career of Peter 

S Flint," "Principles of Salesmanship," etc. 

5 Illustrated by John Goss, cloth, i2mo, $1.50 



As Assistant Professor of Business Method in Boston 
University's famous College of Business Administra- 
tion, the author's lectures have attracted widespread 
attention, and the popularity of his stories of business 
life, which have appeared serially in important trade 
magazines and newspapers all over the country, has 
created an insistent demand for their book publication. 

DAWSON BLACK is the story of a young man's 
first year in business as a store owner — a hardware 
store, but the principles illustrated apply equally to 
any other kind of retail store. In bright, pithy style 
the author narrates the triumphs and disasters, the 
joys and sorrows, the problems and their solutions with 
which a young employer, just commencing his career, 
is confronted. Relations with employees, means of 
fighting competition, and trade psychology in adver- ^ 
tising are some of the important subjects treated. 

The hero's domestic career lends the " human 
interest " touch, so that the book skilfully combines 
fact with fiction, or " business with pleasure," and is 
both fascinating and informative. 



tl*Z'i*i'i»l»i*l*imzml*ZutmimlaimluZulmtmt»zaiuZulmimimim 



J085S 



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THE MAN WHO WON 

OR. THE CAREER AND ADVENTURES OF 
THE YOUNGER MR. HARRISON 



^y Leon D. Hirsch 



Cloth decorative, i2mo, illustrated by William Van 
Dresser, $1.50 



Mr. Hirsch has given the public a novel decidedly 8 

out of the ordinary — a stirring story of political life » 

combined with a romance of absorbing interest. 8 

In compelling fashion the author tells how Edward § 

Harrison, recognized political boss, who had long con- O 

trolled the affairs of a prosperous city, was forced to q 

admit that his unprincipled political methods must % 

give way to clean government, an exponent of which g 

he sees in his son. S 

Cleverly the author depicts Edward Harrison, the w 

unscrupulous political boss ; Jack Harrison, his son, g 

who differs quite a bit from his father; Mrs. Harrison, S 

the indefatigable social climber; and Alice Lane, a S 

bright, lovable girl; and around these widely different 8 

characters Mr. Hirsch has written a vivid story of S 

politics, ambition, love, hate and — best of all — of a 

real life that grips the reader. jg 



A new " Blossom Shop " story 

THE MT. BLOSSOM GIRLS 

r^ (By Is la Ma^ Mullins gj^ 

A sequel to "The Blossom Shop," "Anne of the Blos- 
som Shop" and " Anne's Wedding" 

Illustrated, cloth, i2mo, decorative jacket, $1.50 



In this fourth and last volume of The Blossom Shop 
stories May Carter and Gene Grey, who have won 
countless friends among readers of the series, come 
before them now as the center of interest. University 
graduates, the two girls come forth enamoured of the 
settlement idea, and proceed to carry it out at the 
mining and iron ore plant of their father in the 
mountains of Alabama, with the added interest of effort 
among the quaint mountaineers of the region. Things 
move at a lively pace from the moment of their arrival — 
things unexpected and gay and tragic, which put them 
on their mettle, but do not find them wanting. The 
girls are much imbued with the new independence of 
woman as well as with thought of her broadened sphere, 
and Cupid, who lingers near, is beset by various un- j 
yielding obstacles, but conquers in the end. The book j 
has for an underlying thread ideals of the same high \ 
type which have characterized the former volumes. j 



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THE MYSTERY OF THE 
RED FLAME 

r^ Sj> George Barton 

Author of " The World's Greatest Military Spies and 
Secret Service Agents," etc. 

Cloth, i2tno, illustrated, $1.50 

9 

Take the glorious red flame diamond from the 
museum at Rio de Janeiro, a wily Brazilian rascal, as 
conceited as he is clever, romantic as well as a rogue, a 
little-talking but much-doing American Secret Service 
man, a diamond merchant whose activities won't bear a 
customs inspector's searchlight, and of course a beauti- 
ful girl ! Imagine them all interested intensely in the 
diamond and most of them in the girl. It is evident 
that these ingredients are ideal for the thrilling mystery 
tale, especially when the author is a newspaper man 
whose hobby is the study of crime and criminals. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE RED FLAME is the 
story par excellence to be read in conjunction with the 
shaded lamp, the arm chair and the open fire ! 



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